New Delhi: The Centre on Monday issued a gazette notification for the caste census. The mega exercise will begin in 2027. It will be the country’s 16th census, which will be carried out after a gap of 16 years.
The notification stated that the census proceedings would begin on October 1, 2026, in snow-bound areas like Ladakh. For the rest of the country, it will start on March 1, 2027.
“The reference date for the said census shall be 00.00 hours of the 1st day of March, 2027, except for the Union territory of Ladakh and snow-bound non-synchronous areas of the Union territory of Jammu and Kashmir and the States of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand,” the notification read.
The last census was conducted in 2011.
The statement mentioned that the census, which is conducted to collect population-related data, would be carried out by 34 lakh enumerators and supervisors and around 1.3 lakh census functionaries armed with digital devices.
Know the modalities
The exercise will be conducted in two phases – Houselisting Operation (HLO) and Population Enumeration (PE). Under HLO, data on the housing conditions, assets and amenities of each household will be collected. Under PE, data about the demographic, socio-economic, cultural and other details of every person in each household will be collected.
Self-enumeration facility
The Centre said that the exercise would have the option of self-enumeration. It will be conducted digitally, and very stringent data security measures will be put in place. This will ensure data security at the time of collection, transmission and storage.
The office of the registrar general of India (ORGI) has already developed a web-based portal called Self Self-Enumeration (SE) Portal. This platform allows respondents to view and update the information of their household members.
The SE portal, according to officials, will be closed for changes a few days before the census exercise starts. The objective of the portal is to digitise the process of capturing the census data. Respondents can update the details of their family members online without the help of an enumerator.
The SE portal will be accessible with authentication based on pre-filled information available with the ORGI and a one-time password (OTP) sent to the registered mobile number(s). “The respondent will be allowed to change the family details, and add new family members, and those family members who are not part of the household shall be marked as moved out or died,” an officer said as quoted by the Hindustan Times.
Though the ruling BJP had accused the Congress-led Opposition of attempting to divide the nation on caste lines, it announced the caste-based census in a surprise move.
