Bhubaneswar: With the Census process is set to kick off, the House Listing Operation (HLO) will be conducted across Odisha from April 16.
Announcing this on Wednesday, the Directorate of Census Operations, Odisha, under the Ministry of Home Affairs, stated that the exercise will be carried out in coordination with the state’s Revenue and Disaster Management Department. Trained enumerators and supervisors will visit households to collect data between April 16 and May 15, 2026.
Ahead of this, citizens will have the option of self-enumeration from April 1 to midnight of April 15, 2026. Through the Self-Enumeration (SE) portal, individuals can submit their details online.
To ensure smooth implementation, extensive training has been conducted. A total of 67 Master Trainers were trained in two phases at the Gopabandhu Administrative Academy. These trainers have further trained
1,552 field trainers across districts, who are now training over 1 lakh personnel, including 1,00,875 enumerators and 17,282 supervisors.
The Census will cover all urban and rural areas, including 91 Notified Area Councils, 48 municipalities, five municipal corporations, and two industrial towns. Field operations will be carried out using a mobile application.
For outreach and awareness, renowned sand artist and Padma Shri awardee Sudarshan Pattnaik has been appointed as the brand ambassador.
District Collectors and Municipal Commissioners will serve as Principal Census Officers, while Additional District Collectors will act as District Census Officers. Executive Officers of urban local bodies and tehsildars will function as Charge Officers under their supervision.
The Revenue and Disaster Management Department is the nodal agency for the programme. Primary school teachers will be engaged as enumerators, while high school teachers will serve as supervisors.
It may be noted that the upcoming exercise will be India’s first digital Census, with self-enumeration being introduced for the first time. Data submitted online will be verified by enumerators during field visits. The process will also involve the use of the CMMS portal for creating House Listing Blocks (HLBs).