Notification Issued For 16th Census

New Delhi: Fourteen years after the last Census in 2011, the Centre on Monday issued the notification for conducting the long-delayed national census in two phases starting March 1, 2027. The twin exercise for the Union territory of Ladakh and the non-synchronous snow-bound areas of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand will, however, begin on October 1, 2026.

The Congress Party termed the notification on the 16th Census as a “damp squib”, said it was silent on the inclusion of caste in the exercise and asked whether this was another “U-turn” by the government, while it also demanded the adoption of the Telangana model for not just the caste enumeration but also in bringing out detailed data on socio-economic parameters caste-wise.

“The reference date for the said census shall be 00.00 hours of the 1st day of 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,” said the notification issued by the Registrar-General of India, which works under the Union home ministry.

In respect of Ladakh and snow-bound non-synchronous areas of the Union territory of Jammu and Kashmir and the states of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, the reference date shall be 00:00 hours of the first day of October 2026, it said.

In the upcoming Census, caste enumeration will also be done, the first such exercise since Independence. The last comprehensive caste-based count was done by the British Raj between 1881 and 1931. Caste was excluded from all Census operations conducted since Independence.

This massive exercise, which is expected to cost the government over Rs 13,000 crores to give population-related data from across the country, will be conducted by about 34 lakh enumerators and supervisors and around 1.3 lakh Census functionaries armed with digital devices.

On Sunday, home minister Amit Shah reviewed preparations for the Census with home secretary Govind Mohan, Registrar-General and Census Commissioner of India Mritunjay Kumar Narayan, and others, officials said.

This is the 16th Census since the exercise started and the eighth after Independence, a government statement said.

According to Article 246 of the Constitution, the Census is a subject listed at 69 in the Union List in the Seventh Schedule. The Census is the primary source of data collection from every section of the society and a decennial activity.

The two-phased Census will start with the first step of house-listing operation (HLO), in which the housing conditions, assets and amenities of each household will be collected. This will be followed by the second phase of the population enumeration, in which the demographic, socio-economic, cultural and other details of every person in each household will be gathered.

Very stringent data security measures would be kept in place to ensure data security at the time of collection, transmission and storage.

The population of the country, according to Census 2011, was 1,210.19 million, of which 623.72 million (51.54 per cent) were males and 586.46 million (48.46 per cent) were females.

Preparations for the Census were done for 2021 and the fieldwork was scheduled to begin in some states and UTs from April 1, 2020. The Census work was postponed due to the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic across the country.

The 2021 Census had planned to also update the National Population Register (NPR), but the notification for the 2027 exercise does not make it clear if it will be done.

Even though the reference dates for the Census are October 1, 2026 (for snow-bound areas) and March 1, 2027 (for the rest of India), the house-listing phase may start by April 2026.

Before that, the enumerators and supervisors will be given training for the smooth conduct of the exercise. The training process may start in October 2025.

Citizens will answer around three dozen questions, ranging from whether they use a telephone, Internet connection and the like; their vehicles, the cereals they consume, water source, house type, whether the head of the household is a woman, a Scheduled Caste (SC) or a Scheduled Tribe (ST).

At the apex level, there will be at least 100 national trainers, who will be trained on both Census and trainer development skills to further impart training to the next level, that is, the master trainers.

About 1,800 master trainers will impart training to the field trainers. About 45,000 field trainers will be trained to provide training to the field functionaries -- the enumerators and the supervisors.

The decision to include caste enumeration in the upcoming census was taken by the Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on April 30 this year.

Describing the notification on the 16th Census as a "damp squib", the Congress on Monday claimed that the notification was also silent on the inclusion of caste in the exercise and asked whether this was another “U-turn” by the government. It also said that Centre must adopt the Telangana model for not just caste enumeration but also in bringing out detailed data on socio-economic parameters caste-wise.

AICC general secretary (communications) Jairam Ramesh said the much-touted gazette notification on the 16th Census to be conducted in late 2026/early 2027 has just been issued and was a “damp squib”.

“Today's Gazette Notification is, however, SILENT on the inclusion of caste in the 16th Census. Is this yet another U-turn by the ustad of U-turns? Or will details be announced later?” he said.

He further said that it was entirely because of the persistence and insistence of the Congress that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had “surrendered” to the demand for a caste census.

“He (Modi) had called Congress leaders as ‘Urban Naxals’ for making this demand. Both in Parliament and in the Supreme Court, the Modi government had rejected the very idea of a caste census -- which it announced 47 days back,” he said.

The Congress firmly believes that the 16th Census must adopt the Telangana model for not just caste enumeration but also bringing out detailed data information on socio-economic parameters caste-wise, he asserted.