Population census from Jan 25-Feb 28 2027; poll-bound, snow-bound areas excluded

NEW DELHI: Population enumeration for the 2027 Census will be conducted across most of India from January 25 to February 28, 2027, with poll-bound states and snow-bound regions excluded from the schedule, the government announced on Friday. According to a notification issued by Mritunjay Kumar Narayan, Registrar General of India and Census Commissioner, the reference date for the census will be midnight on March 1, 2027, PTI reported.

The enumeration will not be conducted during this period in Manipur, Goa, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Uttarakhand and Ladakh, or in the snow-bound, non-synchronous areas of Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir. The schedule for Manipur will be announced separately. A revisional round will be held from March 1 to March 5, 2027. The government will also offer a self-enumeration option from January 10 to January 24, ahead of the house-to-house population count. Assembly elections are due in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Goa and Manipur early next year.

The 2027 Census, the eighth since Independence, will be conducted in two phases: house listing and housing census, followed by population enumeration. The decennial exercise was originally scheduled for 2021 but was postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The Union Cabinet has approved Rs 11,718 crore for conducting the census. The Registrar General of India had announced last month that house-listing operations for Census 2027 in Manipur had been deferred.

The census is a nationwide exercise to collect, compile and analyse information about the population and its demographic, social and economic characteristics. The data provides the government with a detailed picture of the country's population and living conditions. The government has said that information collected during the census will remain confidential and be used only for statistical purposes. India's last census was conducted in 2011, when the country's population stood at 1.21 billion, including 62.32 crore males and 58.75 crore females. The country had 24.95 crore households at the time.