New Delhi, July 22
The preparation for Census 2027 has started, and a two-day conference of Directors of Census Operations was held in this regard at the beginning of this month, Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) told the Lok Sabha on Tuesday.
The two-day conference was held on July 3-4 in New Delhi and its was attended by Directors of Census Operations, senior officers from Directorates of Census Operations and officers from Office of Registrar General and Census Commissioner, India, Minister of State for Home Nityanand Rai informed the house in a written reply.
The conference featured discussion on the roadmap of ensuing Census and its related activities such as finalization of frame of administrative units, collection of data through mobile apps, management and monitoring of census activities through Census Management and Monitoring System (CMMS) portal, self-enumeration, training of census functionaries, etc.
"The conference featured discussion on the roadmap of ensuing Census and its related activities such as finalization of frame of administrative units, collection of data through mobile apps, management and monitoring of census activities through Census Management and Monitoring System (CMMS) portal, self-enumeration, and training of census functionaries," the MoS replied to a question.
Rai also pointed that the preparation for Census 2027 starte with the publication of gazette notification dated June 16, 2025 expressing the intent of the Government to conduct Population Census.
The Central government earlier last month announced that the Population Census-2027 will be conducted in two phases, and for the first time, it will also include enumeration of castes.
Ministry of Home Affairs then made the announcement through a statememt mentioning that the census will follow different reference dates depending on the region, in accordance with logistical and climatic factors.
"It has been decided to conduct Population Census-2027 in two phases along with enumeration of castes," a Home Ministry statement then mentioned.
According to the MHA statement, the reference date for the "Population Census-2027 will be 00:00 hours on March 1, 2027, for most parts of the country."
However, for the Union Territory of "Ladakh, and the non-synchronous snow-bound areas of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, and Uttarakhand, the reference date will be 00:00 hours on October 1, 2026."
The government has also indicated that a notification of intent to conduct the census, adhering to the above-mentioned timelines, will be published in the Official Gazette on June 16, 2025. This will be done under Section 3 of the Census Act, 1948, which governs the legal framework for the decennial census exercise in India.
This development marked a significant step in the preparation for the upcoming national census, which was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and is now slated to be one of the most comprehensive data-gathering exercises undertaken by the Indian government.
The Census of India is conducted under the provisions of the Census Act, 1948 and the Census Rules, 1990. The last Census of India was conducted in 2011 in two phases, namely i) Phase I - House Listing (HLO) (1 April to 30 September 2010) and (ii) Phase II - Population Enumeration (PE) (February 9 to February 28, 2011) with reference date - 00:00 hours of the first day of March 2011, except for snow-bound non-synchronous areas of Jammu and Kashmir, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh for which it was conducted during September 11 to 30, 2010 with reference date as 00.00 hours of the first day of October 2010.
Census 2021 was also proposed to be conducted in two phases in a similar manner with phase I during April-September 2020 and second phase in February 2021. All the preparations for the first phase of the Census to be conducted in 2021 were completed and field work was scheduled to begin in some States/UTs from April 1, 2020. However, due to the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic across the country, the census work was postponed.
— ANI
Reader Comments
Good to see preparations starting early. But I hope they train enumerators properly, especially for sensitive questions like caste. Last census, some enumerators in my area were quite insensitive while asking personal questions ðŸ™
The digital approach is welcome but what about remote villages with poor connectivity? Government should ensure offline modes are equally robust. Also, why different dates for snow-bound areas? Seems like extra complexity!
As an urban planner, I'm excited about the new census data! The 2011 data is so outdated now. Hope they release preliminary findings quickly unlike last time when full reports took years. #DataForDevelopment
The caste enumeration is a political move before 2029 elections. While data is important, I hope this doesn't become another tool for vote bank politics. Census should remain purely scientific exercise.
They should include more parameters like digital literacy, access to healthcare, and employment types. Our census format needs modernization to reflect 21st century India! Also, make the process more gender-sensitive please.
Interesting to see India's census methodology evolving. The two-phase approach with different dates for different regions shows good planning. Hope the data will be open access for researchers worldwide.