Nationwide Census to Begin April 2026; Govt Confirms Digital, Two-Stage Process

New Delhi, Dec 2 (PTI) Census 2027 will be conducted in two phases, the first between April and September 2026 and the second in February 2027, the Lok Sabha was informed on Tuesday.Giving details of the exercise in response to a question by Congress MP Rahul Gandhi, Minister of State for Home Affairs Nityanand Rai said the two phases will be -- Phase I-House Listing and Housing Census followed by Phase II–Population Enumeration (PE).The first phase from April to September 2026 will be conducted in a period of 30 days in accordance with the convenience of state/UT governments."Population Enumeration will be done in February 2027 with reference date 00:00 hours of 1st March, 2027 except for the Union territory of Ladakh and snow-bound non-synchronous

areas of the Union territory of Jammu and Kashmir and the States of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, where it will be done in September, 2026 with reference date 00.00 hours of 1st October, 2026," he said.The minister said the census questionnaire is finalised on the basis of inputs and suggestions from different ministries, departments, organisations and census data users before each exercise.The minister said the census has a history of more than 150 years and learnings from previous exercises are taken into consideration for conducting the next census.In a separate question, the minister said caste enumeration will also be done in the census as decided by the Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs on April 30 this year.In another response, the minister said Census 2027 will be conducted through digital means in which data will be collected through mobile apps along with online provision for self-enumeration.(Except for the headline, the content reproduced above remains unchanged from the original PTI copy.)