NEW DELHI: Setting the process in motion for Census-2027, the Centre has announced that citizens will be able to file their personal information digitally through a self-enumeration window from November 1 to 7, 2025, as the pre-test exercise for the first phase of Population Census 2027. The first phase, which includes Houselisting and Housing Census, will be conducted in selected sample areas across all states and union territories from November 10 to 30, 2025, an official said on Friday.
In a Gazette notification, Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India, Mrityunjay Kumar Narayan, said that an option for self-enumeration will be available from November 1-7, 2025. The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has extended the provisions of the Census Act, 1948, for the pre-test under Section 17A of the Act, they said.
The pre-test exercise aims to assess the efficacy of the Census, which will be conducted between April 1, 2026, and February 28, 2027, in two phases - Houselisting and Housing Schedule and Population Enumeration (PE), the officials said. They added that the pre-test “will help test systems, identify challenges and refine methods before the full-scale Census 2027."
Census- 2027 is going to be the first-ever digital exercise in India, and also for the first time, will enumerate the caste of citizens after Independence. During the test phase, all aspects of the exercise - from questions, data collection, training, logistics and mobile application to software performance - will be assessed and evaluated to identify and correct any procedural or technical issues.
In Phase-1, the Houselisting Operation (HLO), data on housing conditions, assets and amenities of each household will be collected. In Phase-2, the Population Enumeration (PE), demographic, socio-economic, cultural, and other details of every person in each household will be recorded. The Population Enumeration process is scheduled to begin on February 1, 2027, the officials said quoting the notification.
The reference date for the Census will be March 1, 2027, for most parts of India, while for Ladakh and snow-bound regions of Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, and Uttarakhand, it will be October 1, 2026.
Over 34 lakh enumerators and supervisors, along with around 1.3 lakh Census functionaries, will be deployed for the massive data collection exercise.
This will be India’s 16th Census since the exercise began and the eighth Census after Independence. The official Gazette notification of the government’s intent to conduct the Census was published on June 16, 2025.
The last Census was conducted in 2011. It was supposed to be taken up in 2021, but was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.