India to conduct nationwide census in 2027 after 16 years

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The government has announced that India will conduct its 16th census in 2027, including caste enumeration for the first time since 2011.
The census will use October 1, 2026, as the reference date for snowy areas like Ladakh, and March 1, 2027, for the rest of the country, according to the official notification.
"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," the notification said.
For Ladakh and other snow-covered areas in Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, and Uttarakhand, the census will use October 1, 2026, as the official reference date.
The massive exercise to give population-related data from across the country will be done by about 34 lakh enumerators and supervisors and around 1.3 lakh census functionaries armed with digital devices.
In the census, caste enumeration will also be done, a government statement said. Provision of self-enumeration would also be made available to the people.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah had reviewed the preparation for the census with Union Home Secretary, Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India Mritunjay Kumar Narayan and other senior officials here on Sunday.
The census will be conducted in two phases. In phase one- Houselisting Operation (HLO)- the housing conditions, assets and amenities of each household will be collected. Subsequently, in second phase, the Population Enumeration (PE)- the demographic, socio-economic, cultural and other details of every person in each household will be collected.
This census is the 16th census since the exercise started and eight after Independence, a government statement said. Very stringent data security measures would be kept in place to ensure data security at the time of collection, transmission and storage, the statement said.