The Census – the recording of India’s population, including of critical details such as caste – will begin in the union territories of Ladakh and Jammu and Kashmir, as well as Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand from midnight on October 1, 2026, the government said Monday afternoon.
Counting for the rest of the country will begin from midnight on March 1, 2027.
Earlier today Union Home Minister Amit Shah reviewed the census prep with the Home secretary, the Registrar General & Census Commissioner of India and other senior officials.
In each state the census will conducted in two phases, officials have said.
In the first, i.e., the House Listing Operation, or HLO, information about the housing conditions, assets, and amenities of each household will be collected.
In the second, i.e., Population Enumeration, or PE, demographic, socio-economic, and cultural details of every person in each household will be collected. Information about an individual’s caste will collected in this phase.
The government had, on April 30, confirmed that an enumeration of the various castes and sub-castes in the country, and the number of people in each, will be part of the next census.
The decision to include caste enumeration in the census – a demand pressed fiercely by the opposition – was announced months before a critical election in Bihar, over 63 per cent of the population of which comes from Extremely Backward or Backward classes.
The government has clarified that caste, and not class, will be taken into consideration during the Census. Therefore, each person will have to mention their caste and religion.
Explaining the need to specify caste rather than class, sources said there is no single list for Other Backward Classes (OBCs), unlike Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs).
The OBC list varies from state to state and also from the central government, sources said.
The latter is maintained by the National Commission for Backward Classes and used for reference in providing reservations in central government jobs and educational institutions.
The last national population count was in 2011. The 2021 census had to be abandoned because of the pandemic. The 2027 census, when it is held, will therefore be the first in 16 years.
The opposition has been pushing for a census to be held, arguing it is necessary to have an accurate, up-to-date count of population and socio-economic data for effective policy-making.