New Delhi [India], June 4 (ANI): The Government of India on Wednesday announced that the Population Census 2027 will be conducted in two phases and will, for the first time in decades, include caste enumeration alongside population data.
The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) issued an official statement outlining the timeline and logistical details of the upcoming exercise. “It has been decided to conduct Population Census-2027 in two phases along with enumeration of castes,” the statement said.
As per the MHA, the reference date for most parts of India will be 00:00 hours on March 1, 2027. However, in Ladakh and non-synchronous snow-bound areas of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, and Uttarakhand, the census will use October 1, 2026, as the reference date due to climatic and logistical considerations.
The government will formally notify the intent to conduct the census in the Official Gazette on June 16, 2025, under Section 3 of the Census Act, 1948. This notification sets the legal groundwork for the decennial census operation.
Originally scheduled for 2021, the census was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, making Census 2027 the first full population count since 2011. The upcoming exercise is expected to be one of the most comprehensive demographic data collection efforts ever undertaken in India.
The census will be carried out under the Census Act, 1948, and Census Rules, 1990, following the same phased format used in previous rounds. The 2011 Census was conducted in two stages:
- House Listing Operations (HLO) from April to September 2010
- Population Enumeration (PE) from February 9 to February 28, 2011, with a reference date of March 1, 2011.
For snow-bound areas, the reference date in 2011 was October 1, 2010. A similar dual-reference schedule had been planned for Census 2021, which was also divided into two phases. All preparations had been completed and fieldwork was set to begin on April 1, 2020, but was postponed indefinitely due to the pandemic.
The inclusion of caste enumeration is likely to spark renewed discussions on social equity, policy planning, and resource distribution. The government’s decision is being seen as a significant shift in India’s demographic policy, especially as caste data was last comprehensively collected in the 1931 census, though a limited version was included in the Socio-Economic and Caste Census (SECC) 2011.
Census 2027 is expected to play a critical role in shaping India’s economic planning, social welfare programs, and legislative reforms over the next decade. (ANI)
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