NEW DELHI: The Centre on Monday issued a Gazette notification and formally announced the conduct of the much-delayed decennial National Population Census-2027.
The Census was supposed to be done in 2021, but it was postponed due to the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic.
Officials in the government said that the data collected after the exercise would be key to policy-making in future and would also help policymakers to evaluate the ongoing social sector schemes and their impact.
According to officials, the Census will be conducted in two phases: House Listing Operation (HLO) , which will collect data on the housing conditions, assets and amenities of each household in the first phase and Population Enumeration (PE), the demographic, socio-economic, cultural and other details of every person in each household will be collected in next phase.
The caste enumeration will be done for the first time after Independence, which is the eighth edition since then. Overall, this is the 16th edition of the Census since its beginning in 1881.
The Gazette notification, which has been issued in the name of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner (RG&CCI), under the administrative control of the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) said, "In exercise of the powers conferred by section 3 of the Census Act, 1948 (37 of 1948), and in supersession of the notification of the Government of India in the Ministry of Home Affairs (Office of the Registrar General, India)…, dated the 26th March, 2019 published in the Gazette of India, Extraordinary, Part II, section 3, sub-section (ii), dated the 28th March, 2019, except as respects things done or omitted to be done before such supersession, the Central Government hereby declares that a census of the population of India shall be taken during the year 2027.”
The notification further read: “The reference date for the said census shall be 00.00 hours of the 1st day of March, 2027, except for the Union Territory (UT) of Ladakh and snow-bound non-synchronous areas of the UT of Jammu and Kashmir and the States of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand.”
It went on to add that in respect of the UT of Ladakh and snow-bound non-synchronous areas of the UT of Jammu and Kashmir and the States of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, “the reference date shall be 00:00 hours of the 1st day of October, 2026”.
Meanwhile, on June 15, Union Home Minister Amit Shah held a high-level meeting to review the preparations for the upcoming Census. During the meeting, Union Home Secretary Govind Mohan, RG &CCI and other senior officials were present.
After the meeting in an X post, Shah said, “Reviewed the preparations for the 16th Census with senior officials. Tomorrow, the Gazette notification of the census will be issued. The census will include caste enumeration for the first time.”
He went on to add that as many as 34 lakh enumerators and supervisors and around 1.3 lakh census functionaries will conduct the operation with cutting-edge mobile digital gadgets.
The ensuing Census will be conducted through digital means using mobile applications.
Provision of ‘Self-enumeration’ would also be made available to the people, which would later be verified by the government enumerators, the officials said, adding that a robust data security system has been put in place to ensure that the entire process remains leak-proof.
According to sources, once the final census data is out, which could be by late 2027 will open the doors to start the process of delimitation, but Parliament will be required to pass a Delimitation Act to pave the way for the formation of a Delimitation Commission.
Delimitation is mandated under Articles 81 and 82 of the Constitution and is required to be carried out after every Census. This had happened thrice, based on the Census of 1951, 1961, and 1971.
But, with the 42nd Amendment to the Constitution, passed during the Emergency, it froze the total number of Parliamentary and state Assembly seats until the 2001 Census.
The present delimitation of Parliamentary constituencies within states has been done based on the 2001 Census, under the provisions of the Delimitation Act, 2002. However, only the boundaries of constituencies have been altered and not the number of seats. It remained the same on the basis of the 1971 Census.
Later in 2002, the Constitution was again amended (84th amendment) to specify that there would be no interstate delimitation of constituencies until the 'first Census to be conducted after the year 2026'.