New Delhi: The Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India, Mritunjay Kumar Narayan, addressed a Press Conference on Census-2027, in New Delhi on March 31, 2026. The World’s largest census will be conducted in two phases and first phase will begin from April 1, 2026. For the first time, the Census will be conducted digitally and for the first time, the option of Self-Enumeration will also be available. Self-enumeration will be from April 1 to 15 and House Listing and Housing Census will be from April 16 to May 15, 2026.
Census of India is conducted under the provisions of Census Act, 1948, Census Rules, 1990 as amended from time to time. The last Census of India was conducted in 2011. Census 2027 will be 16th in series and 8th since independence. The intent of the Government to conduct Population Census 2027 has been notified in Gazette of India on June 16, 2025.
Phase 1 of the census
The Census 2027 will be conducted in two phases. Phase I is House Listing and Housing Census popularly known as HLO. This will be for a duration of six months from April to September, 2026 in a period of 30 days as per the convenience of the State/UT Governments along with option of Self-enumeration of 15 days period just before the 30 days period ofhouselisting work. In this phase information about condition of houses, amenities available to the household and assets possessed by the household will be collected. Questions of the Phase I of the Census have been notified in January, 2026.
Phase 2 of the census
Phase II–Population Enumeration(PE) will be conducted during February 2027(UT of Ladakh and snow-bound non-synchronous areas of UT of Jammu and Kashmir and States of Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh Phase II will be conducted during September 2026). As decided by CCPA, enumeration of Castes will also be done during second phase of Census. In phase II, information on demographic, socio-economic, education, migration, fertility etc. will be collected from each individual. Exact dates of the Population Enumeration and question to be covered in this Phase will be notified in due course.
States namely Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Delhi(New Delhi Municipal Council and Delhi Cantonment Board), Goa, Karnataka, Lakshadweep, Mizoram, Odisha, and Sikkim will do the Houselisting and Housing Census during April 16 to May 15, 2026. Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Chandigarh, Chhattisgarh and Haryana will start Houselisting Census from May 1 to May 30 with period of self-Enumeration from April 16 to April 30, 2026.
Method of conducting the census
The Union Government has approved an outlay of ₹11,718.24 crore for Census 2027, making adequate provisions for payment of honorarium and training to Census functionaries, IT infrastructures, logistics, etc. The Census 2027 will be conducted through digital means. Enumerators will collect and submit data directly through Mobile App, using her/his smart phone. In addition to this, there will be an online provision for self-enumeration in both the phases. Mobile app as well as Self-Enumeration portal will be available in 16 languages including Hindi and English.
A portal has been developed for management and monitoring of various census related field activities like generation of appointment letter and ID card of enumerators and supervisors and allocation of work to them, management of training to census functionaries, HLB creation, monitoring of the progress of work through dashboard near real time basis, auto-generation of some Census Records/Abstracts, etc. Houselisting Blocks(HLBs) will be carved out using a web mapping application. Necessary measures for data security have been taken.
Process for self-enumeration
For self-enumeration, respondents can log into the SE portal using their mobile number and other basic details and complete the census schedule at their convenience. Upon successful submission, a unique Self-Enumeration ID(SE ID) will be generated which is to be shared with the enumerator during the field visit. Self-Enumeration option provides flexibility to fill the information at one’s own convenience before the enumerator’s visit. While enumerators will continue to make house to house enumeration in their allocated blocks as in the previous censuses, Self-enumeration is an additional facility given this time to respondents.
A Pre-test of first phase of Census (HLO) i.e. a full rehearsal of the entire census methodology including the appointment and trainings of the census field functionaries and other officers/officials of state, questionnaire, relevant apps and portals and all other related activities from data collection to data processing was conducted in all States/UTs in November, 2025 in about 5000 blocks. All the administrative units have been frozen from January 2026 to March 2027. Census 2027 will be conducted in 36 States/UTs, 7,092 sub-districts, 5,128 Statutory towns, 4,580 Census towns and around 6,39,902 villages.
Elaborate arrangement for training of Census functionaries has been made. 100 national trainers have been trained by subject matter experts who have trained about 2000 master trainers. These Master trainers are training about 45000 field trainers who in turn will train about 31 lakh enumerators and supervisors in about 80 thousand batches. All possible training materials have been prepared in regional languages so as to ensure that the last mile foot soldiers, the enumerators and supervisors do not face difficulty in collecting quality data in a timely manner.
