India will habits its first totally virtual inhabitants Census in 2027, with the preliminary segment set to start out on April 1, 2026, Registrar Common and Census Commissioner Mritunjay Kumar Narayan introduced on Monday.
The workout, India’s sixteenth Census and 8th since Independence, would be the international’s greatest enumeration force, involving over 30 lakh enumerators, supervisors and officers around the nation.
For the primary time, knowledge will probably be amassed digitally the usage of cellular programs, changing conventional paper-based strategies. In a vital new characteristic, voters can even be capable of self-enumerate via a protected on-line portal to be had in 16 languages.
Below the program, families can put up their main points on-line and generate a singular Self-Enumeration ID, which will probably be verified all the way through an enumerator’s discuss with. Officers stated tough safeguards were installed position to make sure knowledge safety.
The workout will probably be performed in two stages. Segment I, the Space List and Housing Census, will run from April to September 2026 and accumulate knowledge on housing prerequisites, facilities and property. Segment II, the Inhabitants Enumeration, will probably be performed in February 2027 and can seize demographic, socio-economic and academic main points, together with caste knowledge.
The primary segment will apply a staggered timeline throughout states, each and every preceded by means of a 15-day self-enumeration window.
The federal government has licensed an outlay of Rs 11,718 crore for the workout, which is able to duvet 36 States and Union Territories, over 7,000 sub-districts, greater than 5,000 statutory cities and just about 6.4 lakh villages.
A devoted virtual ecosystem, together with cellular apps, self-enumeration portals and real-time tracking dashboards, has been evolved. A national pre-test performed in November 2025 validated the gadget.
Officers stated the virtual Census is anticipated to beef up accuracy, potency and timeliness of knowledge, assisting higher coverage making plans and governance.
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