Population census begins January 25, barring poll-bound states and snow-covered regions | India News

The Centre on Friday notified the schedule for the population enumeration phase of Census 2027 in the country, except in poll-bound states and snow-bound regions, from January 25 to February 28, followed by a “revisional round” from March 1 to 5.

The Centre has notified 40 questions, including one to choose from the “Scheduled Caste (SC)/Scheduled Tribe (ST)/Caste.” (ANI/ Representational)According to a notification issued by Registrar General of India (RGI) and Census Commissioner, Mritunjay Kumar Narayan, the reference date for the census shall be 00:00 hours of March 1, 2027. It effectively means every person alive at that moment across the country will be counted, while a child born after the reference date will not feature in the final Census 2027 data.

“In exercise of the powers conferred by section 3 of the Census Act, 1948... the Central Government hereby declares that in all States and Union territories of India except the State of Manipur (till further declaration), the States of Goa, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Uttarakhand, the Union territory of Ladakh and the snow-bound non-synchronous areas of the State of Himachal Pradesh and the Union territory of Jammu and Kashmir the conduct of census of the population shall be undertaken from the 25th January, 2027 to the 28th February, 2027 with a revisional round from the 1st March, 2027 to the 5th March, 2027,” the notification said. The “revisional round” for the census will be held from March 1 to March 5, 2027.

In a first for Census, citizens will get an option of self-enumeration from January 10 to January 24, 2027 and the window for the same will open “just before the start of the house-to-house population enumeration,” the notification said.

The last decadal census was conducted in 2011 and the 2021 round was delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The Union Cabinet approved ₹11,718 crore for conducting the census.

The world’s biggest headcount exercise, the eighth since Independence, is being conducted in two phases: house listing and housing census, followed by population enumeration. The house listing and housing phase, which was conducted between April and September 2026, recorded housing conditions, assets and amenities of each household and created the blocks that enumerators will now cover.

The second phase is far more detailed and it will record the demographic, socio-economic, cultural, migration and fertility details of every individual. The ongoing exercise is the first since 1931 to include caste enumeration for all communities, a decision taken by the Centre in April last year.

The Centre has notified 40 questions for this phase, including one to choose from the “Scheduled Caste (SC)/Scheduled Tribe (ST)/Caste.”

Last month, the Centre had deferred house-listing operations for Census 2027 in ethnic strife-torn Manipur.

Ladakh and the snow-bound non-synchronous areas of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand follow a different calendar because winter makes the usual February window difficult. As notified on August 3, enumeration there was set for September 1 to 30, 2026, with a revisional round from October 1 to 5.

In Goa, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and the non-snow-bound areas of Uttarakhand, the Centre had notified population enumeration from December 1, 2026 to January 4, 2027, with self-enumeration from November 16 to 30 and a revisional round from January 5.

The caste question remains the most closely watched part of the exercise. Opposition parties, led by the Congress, demanded a caste census for years, and the issue featured prominently in the run-up to the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

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