SYLLABUS

GS-1: Role of women and women’s organization, population and associated issues, poverty and developmental issues, urbanization, their problems and their remedies.

GS-2: Government Policies and Interventions for Development in various sectors and Issues arising out of their Design and Implementation.

Context: Recently, the Union Cabinet, chaired by the Prime Minister of India, has approved the proposal for conducting the Census of India 2027 at a cost of Rs.11,718.24 crore.

Details of the Scheme

• The Indian Census is the largest administrative and statistical exercise in the world. The Census of India would be conducted in two phases: 

(i) Houselisting and Housing Census – April to September, 2026  

(ii) Population Enumeration (PE) – February 2027 (For the UT of Ladakh and snow bound non-synchronous areas of UT of Jammu & Kashmir and states of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, PE shall be conducted in September, 2026).

• 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.

• Census-as-a-service (CaaS) will deliver data to ministries in a clean, machine-readable and actionable format.

• Unlike 2019, the statement does not mention a separate budgetary allocation for updating the National Population Register (NPR)

Implementation strategy and targets

• The Census process involves visiting each and every household and canvassing separate questionnaire for Houselisting & Housing Census and Population Enumeration.

• 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.

• New initiatives taken for the Census 2027 are:

• First Census by digital means: Data will be collected using mobile applications that will be available for both Android as well as iOS versions.
• Census Management & Monitoring System (CMMS) portal: It is a dedicated portal for managing and monitoring the entire Census process on a real-time basis.
• Houselisting Block (HLB) Creator web map application: It is to be used by the Charge Officers for Census 2027.
• Self-enumerate Option: It will be provided to the public.
• Suitable security features: provisioned for digital operation.
• Inclusion of caste enumeration: Census 2027 will capture Caste data electronically in second phase, i.e. Population Enumeration (PE).
• 30 lakh field functionaries: It includes Enumerators, Supervisors, Master Trainers, Charge Officers and Principal/ District Census Officers, that will be deployed for data collection, monitoring and supervision of Census operations. 

About Census 2027

• Census 2027 will be the 16th Census of India and the 8th Census after Independence, continuing the decennial tradition of comprehensive population enumeration.

• The Census will be conducted under the legal framework of the Census Act 1948 and the Census Rules 1990, which govern the methodology, confidentiality and administrative processes of enumeration.

• Census 2027 will be the first-ever digital Census in India, marking a major shift towards technology-driven data collection and management.

• The exercise will be carried out in two distinct phases to ensure systematic data collection across the country.

• Phase I: House Listing and Housing Census will be conducted between April and September 2026, for a period of 30 days, depending on the convenience of individual States and Union Territories.
• Phase II: Population Enumeration will be conducted in February 2027, covering detailed personal and socio-economic information of individuals.

• Caste enumeration will be included in Census 2027, expanding the scope of socio-demographic data collection.

Source :
PM India 
Outlook India 
New Indian Express