First Indian census after 15 years to begin on April 1: Know all the details here
Union Home Minister Amit Shah unveils the mascot of the census 2027 and launches the digital tools to be used during the census, in New Delhi on Tuesday. Photograph: (ANI)
India’s first digital Census starts April 1, 2026. Learn about self-enumeration, phases, caste data, security measures, and why NPR won’t be updated.
The Union Government has announced the first digital census of India to be conducted on April 1. This is the first census since 2011, the 16th Indian census in the series and the 8th census since Indian Independence. The 2027 census will be conducted in two phases, first phase, House Listing and Housing Census (HLO) and the second phase, Population Enumeration (PE). The first phase will start from April 1, 2026, and continue till September 30, 2026. The first phase will provide data on housing conditions, amenities available, and assets possessed by households and provide a framework for the second phase on sociocultural and economic data. The total budget for the complete process is ₹11,718.24 crore.
First Digital Census of India
Data will be collected through an app by the enumerator. There will be 16 different languages for the first phase of the data collection. The Union Government has introduced the process of “Self Enumeration”. Each respondent will have the opportunity to provide the required information digitally in the first 15 days of the census, before the 30 days when the enumerator will be listing house to house. The user can register for self-enumeration in the dedicated web portal liekly at se.censusindia.gov.in, and they will receive a reference ID, which will have to be shared with the enumerator assigned to their locality. The self-enumeration portal will reportedly be available in Assamese, Bengali, English, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Konkani, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Nepali, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu.
How will the data security be assured?
Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India, Mritunjay Kumar Narayan, suggested that the data security will be assured by “reputed agencies”. There will be an end-to-end data security from data collection, transmission to the server level. The data will be stored in an encrypted form with the assistance of the cybersecurity agencies. In case of data manipulation at the individual level, the enumerator will verify the details listed by the respondent.
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Will there be caste enumeration?
The caste enumeration will be conducted in the second phase. However, it is not clear if there will be registery of caste or the caste will be enumerated as a direct response.
Will there be an NPR update?
Despite previous plans to align the NPR with the house-listing phase of the Census, there will be no provision to update the National Population register in the Census 2027.
