Union Cabinet okays Rs 11,718 crore for Census 2027

Bhubaneswar: The Union Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, today approved a proposal for conducting Census of India 2027 at a cost of Rs 11,718.24 crore.

The Indian Census is the largest administrative and statistical exercise in the world. It would be conducted in two phases. In the first phase, house-listing and housing census will be conducted from April to September in 2026. Population enumeration (PE) will be done in the second phase in February 2027.

However, the PE in the Union Territory (UT) of Ladakh and snow bound non-synchronous areas of UT of Jammu & Kashmir and states of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand will be conducted in September, 2026.

Also Read: India gears up for first-ever digital Census in 2027 with caste data, self-enumeration features

About 30 lakh field functionaries will complete this gigantic exercise of national importance. Use of mobile app for data collection and the Central portal for monitoring purpose will ensure better quality data, said the Centre.

Data dissemination will be much better and in a user-friendly way so that all the queries on required parameters for policy making will be made available on the click of a button.

The Census data will be delivered in a clean, machine-readable and actionable format

Census-as-a-service (CaaS) will deliver data to ministries in a clean, machine-readable and actionable format. Census of India 2027 will cover the entire population in the country.

The Census process involves visiting each and every household and canvassing separate questionnaire for house-listing and housing census and population enumeration.

Also Read: Union Cabinet okays caste enumeration during upcoming census

The enumerators, generally government teachers and appointed by the state governments, will be doing the field work of Census in addition to their regular duties. Other Census functionaries at Sub-district, District and State levels will also be appointed by the state/district administration.

It is worth mentioning here that the Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs, in its meeting on April 30, decided to include caste enumeration in the Census 2027.  With the huge social and demographic diversity in our country and related challenges, the Census 2027 will also capture Caste data electronically during population enumeration (PE) of Census 2027, said the Centre.