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Informist, Wednesday, Jun. 4, 2025

 

--[I] Govt to conduct census with caste enumeration in 2 phases from Mar 1, 2027

 

NEW DELHI – The government has decided to conduct the long-pending decennial Census starting Mar. 1, 2027. The Census, which will include the enumeration of castes, will be conducted in two phases, the Ministry of Home Affairs said Wednesday. The Census, due in 2021, was initially postponed on account of the COVID-19 pandemic.

 

"It has been decided to conduct the Population Census 2027 in two phases along with enumeration of castes," the ministry said. "The reference date for Population Census 2027 will be 0000 hours of the first day of March 2027. For the Union territory of Ladakh and the non-synchronous snow-bound areas of the UT of Jammu and Kashmir and States of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, the reference date will be 0000 hours of the first day of October 2026."

 

The ministry said the notification for intent to conduct the Census would be published in the official gazette Jun. 16. The Census of India is normally conducted every decade under the provisions of the Census Act, 1948, and the Census Rules, 1990.

 

Earlier, on Apr. 30, the government had decided to include caste enumeration in the Census. The decision was taken at a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, amid intense pressure from the Opposition to collect data on the country's caste composition for effective policy-making.

The ministry said Census 2021 was proposed to be conducted in two phases with the first phase in Apr-Sept 2020 and the second in February 2021. "All the preparations for the first phase of the Census to be conducted in 2021 were completed and field work was scheduled to begin in some States/UTs from Apr. 1, 2020," it said in the release. "However, due to the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic across the country, the census work was postponed."

 

The last Census of India was conducted in 2011 in two phases--Phase 1 – House Listing (Apr. 1-Sept. 30, 2010) and Phase II – Population Enumeration (Feb. 9 to Feb. 28, 2011) with Mar. 1, 2011, as the reference date. Census 2011 had recorded a population of over 1.21 billion in India.  End

 

Reported by Kuldeep Singh

Edited by Rajeev Pai

 

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