The Centre on Friday approved the conduct of the Census of India 2027, clearing the country’s largest administrative and statistical exercise after a prolonged gap. The Census will be conducted in two phases: house-listing and housing census from April to September 2026; and population enumeration (PE) in February 2027.
For Ladakh and snow-bound, non-synchronous areas of Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, PE will be conducted in September 2026. “The Union Cabinet, at a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, approved the proposal to conduct the Census, which will be the first digital exercise of its kind,” Information and Broadcasting Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw briefed the media.
The Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, approved Rs 11,718 crore for conducting the Census of India, 2027, which would include the caste enumeration for the first time and also a proposal to conduct the Census, which will be the first digital exercise. Around 30 lakh enumerators would be involved in the entire exercise.
The exercise is the biggest source of primary data at the village, town and ward-level, providing micro-level data on various parameters including housing condition, amenities and assets, demography, religion, SC and ST, language, literacy and education, economic activity, migration and fertility. The last comprehensive caste-based count was done by the British between 1881 and 1931.
Caste was excluded from all Census operations conducted since Independence. The decision to include caste enumeration in the upcoming Census was taken by the Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on April 30.
In 2010, then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had assured the Lok Sabha that the matter of caste census would be considered in the cabinet. However, the previous Congress-led government opted for a survey instead of a caste census, known as the Socio-Economic and Caste Census (SECC). The population of the country according to the Census 2011 was 1,210.19 million of which 623.72 million (51.54 per cent) were males and 586.46 million (48.46 per cent) were females.
The 16th edition of the Census since Independence will also provide an option of self-enumeration to the citizens. The decadal exercise, which was scheduled to take place in 2021, got postponed due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic across the country. Vaishnaw said the Census will be conducted in two phases — house-listing and housing census from April to September 2026; and population enumeration (PE) in February 2027. “This will become the first-ever digital census,” Vaishnaw said.
Vaishnaw said the entire digital census system has been created as a very robust system and all personal data protection laws will be applicable. The census will collect the micro-level data of every individual and household and present macro-level data, he added.
