Punjab's Drug and Socio-Economic Census included questions about the state government's performance alongside substance dependence and household conditions. The Tribune reported on April 16 that it had accessed the questionnaire within a 96-page training manual prepared by the Rural Development and Panchayats Department for a survey covering 65 lakh households.
Enumerators were instructed to record household composition, housing conditions and location, followed by education, employment and income details. The questionnaire also covered migration for work or study, outstanding loans and their purpose, and experiences of caste discrimination when using schools, clinics, temples or water sources.
The drug-use module asked about substance dependence, its duration, visits to treatment centres and the distance to rehabilitation facilities. Separate questions sought respondents' assessment of five leading government initiatives, three problems needing priority attention and access to welfare programmes. That documented mix of subjects preceded the controversy over how the exercise was being conducted.
In a subsequent account updated on May 22, The Indian Express reported complaints from teacher-enumerators that many families denied drug use, leaving much of the interview devoted to welfare feedback. Questions covered free electricity, Aam Aadmi Clinics, women's bus travel and pilgrimage assistance. Some teachers said interviews took 40 to 60 minutes and were difficult to complete.
Amit Talwar, the survey's nodal officer, told that newspaper that welfare questions were intended to collect suggestions for improvement. He said additional questions appeared after affirmative responses, explaining why the total could exceed 100. He also said rejected entries received manual checks, responding to teachers' complaints about the software's assessment of recorded answers.
The later report quoted opposition leaders accusing the government of collecting election-related feedback; those allegations did not establish the eventual use of the data. The documented questionnaire shows a broader exercise than a count of drug users alone. Its treatment-access questions and welfare-performance questions measure different things, a distinction made more important by enumerators' accounts of families declining to disclose substance use.
