New Delhi, Jan 7: After a six-year delay, the Centre has notified the schedule for the first phase of Census 2027, with houselisting operations to be held between April and September next year, the Ministry of Home Affairs announced on Wednesday.
In a notification, Census Commissioner Mrityunjay Kumar Narayan said states and Union territories will conduct houselisting for a period of 30 days each within the April 1–September 30 timeframe. The government has also allowed a 15-day self-enumeration period before the start of field operations.
“There shall also be an option for self-enumeration, which shall be conducted in 15 days just before the commencement of house-to-house houselisting,” the notification stated.
The decadal census was due in 2021 but was postponed as the country battled the Covid-19 pandemic. The Centre has now decided to conduct the exercise in two stages, beginning with houselisting and housing census in 2026, followed by population enumeration in February 2027.
Officials said the first phase involves identifying and recording details of all structures and households across the country. “A robust houselisting exercise is essential to ensure the accuracy of the population count,” a senior official said.
Census 2027 will also record caste details during the population enumeration phase, a significant departure from past practice. Caste was excluded from census operations after Independence, with the last such data collected during British rule.
The inclusion of caste enumeration was approved by the Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs in April last year. The government has said the data will be collected electronically as part of a fully digital census.
Around 30 lakh enumerators will use mobile applications to collect data, marking the first all-digital census in India. Officials said the digital format would reduce manual errors and improve real-time monitoring.
According to Census 2011, India had a population of 1.21 billion, with men accounting for 51.54 per cent and women 48.46 per cent of the total.
