Caste Count in Second Phase of Census 2027: Centre
Questions on caste to be finalised before population enumeration begins, says govt
In a written reply, Minister of State for Home Affairs Nityanand Rai said the Centre’s intention to conduct Census 2027 has been formally notified.
“Caste enumeration will also be done in the second phase of the census exercise called Population Enumeration (PE), in which the demographic, socio-economic, cultural and other details of every person will be collected,” the minister said.
He added that the questions for the second phase, including those relating to caste, would be finalised and notified in accordance with the established procedure before the start of the phase. Rai said several representations seeking caste enumeration had been received from organisations in different states, including Tamil Nadu.
The minister informed the House that the Census is conducted in two phases. In the first phase, the House Listing Operation (HLO), information on housing conditions, assets and amenities of each household is collected. The second phase, Population Enumeration, records demographic, socio-economic and cultural details of every individual.
Rai said the questions for the first phase were notified on January 22, while those for the second phase, including caste-related questions, would be notified before the start of Population Enumeration.
He said the Census exercise would be carried out by about 30 lakh enumerators and supervisors, along with around 1.3 lakh census functionaries, using digital devices.
In a separate response, the minister said mobile applications, the Census Management and Monitoring portal and the Self Enumeration portal had been developed for the first phase. He added that security measures had been provided for data collection, transmission and storage at the server level.
Provision for offline data collection has been made in the mobile applications, Rai said, adding that paper-based collection would be used only in unavoidable circumstances and digitised at the charge level.
Enumerators will undertake house-to-house visits in their allotted blocks to collect data, he said, adding that self-enumeration was an additional facility and that field visits would ensure no exclusion.
The option of self-enumeration will be available for 15 days prior to the start of the houselisting operations, which will be conducted over a 30-day period between April 1 and September 30, as specified by states and Union Territories.
Census 2027 will be conducted with a reference date of October 1, 2026, for snow-bound areas such as Ladakh, and March 1, 2027, for the rest of the country. The decadal exercise, originally scheduled for 2021, was postponed due to the Covid-19 outbreak.
The Cabinet has allocated Rs 11,718 crore for Census 2027, which will be conducted with digital processes and the option of self-enumeration. The Registrar General of India has notified 33 questions for the first phase of the houselisting and housing census.
