Chennai, July 23:
The 2027 Census will mark India’s first fully digital population enumeration, with data collected strictly for national planning and not for determining eligibility for welfare schemes, a senior official said on Wednesday.
Tamil Nadu Census Director M Sundaresh Babu said the exercise would leverage complete digital technology, making it a landmark shift in how demographic data is gathered across the country.
Addressing a press conference after a consultative meeting, he said around 1.6 lakh personnel would be deployed across Tamil Nadu, while nearly 30 lakh enumerators would participate nationwide.
The census will be conducted in two phases. The first phase—house listing and housing census—will take place in Tamil Nadu from August 1 to August 30, followed by the second phase focusing on population enumeration.
A key feature of the upcoming census is the introduction of a self-enumeration portal, allowing citizens to submit their details online. A 15-day window ending July 31 has been provided for this facility. In Madurai district alone, about 9,000 households have already opted for self-enumeration.
During the August fieldwork, enumerators will visit households to collect responses to a standardised set of 33 questions. Each enumerator is expected to cover 200 to 250 households, accounting for approximately 800 to 900 individuals.
Clarifying concerns over data usage, Babu said information on household assets such as air conditioners, televisions, or mobile phones would not be used to determine Below Poverty Line (BPL) status or deny government benefits. “The information collected is strictly for planning and acts as a baseline framework,” he said, adding that individual data would remain confidential and would not influence voting rights or citizenship.
He also noted that the houseless population would be enumerated during a special drive in the final days of the second phase in February 2027, while Indians living abroad during the census period would not be counted.
For locked households, enumerators will make multiple visits and coordinate with neighbours to schedule appointments. To avoid disruption to school functioning, teachers involved in the exercise will be allowed to conduct enumeration work outside school hours or during holidays, in coordination with district authorities.