Govt announces schedule of India’s 16th Census in 2027 along with caste enumeration

India’s 16th Census with caste enumeration will be carried out in 2027 with the reference date of October 1, 2026 in snow-bound areas like Ladakh and of March 1, 2027 in the rest of the country. It has been decided to conduct Population Census-2027 in two phases along with the enumeration of castes, the Union Home Ministry announced on Wednesday. The Census is being carried out after a gap of 16 years as the last one was held in 2011. Over 30 lakh enumerators and their supervisors are likely to be engaged to carry out the mega exercise. “The reference date for Population Census – 2027 will be 00:00 hours of the first day of March 2027. “For the Union Territory of Ladakh and the non-synchronous snow-bound areas of the UT of Jammu and Kashmir and states of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, the reference date will be 00.00 hours of the first day of October 2026,” the ministry said in a statement. The last comprehensive caste-based count was done by the British between 1881 and 1931. The Socio-Economic and Caste Census (SECC) conducted in 2011 under the UPA government did collect caste data, but it was never fully published or utilised. Bihar and Telangana have conducted caste surveys in the last three years.