New Delhi: The Registrar General of India (RGI) has issued the first circular for Census 2027, directing field offices across states and UTs to send details of changes in administrative boundaries since 2010 and ensure that such changes, down to the ward- and village-level are updated ahead of the Census.
In the Circular No. 1 of Census 2027, titled “planning for the Census 2027- Jurisdictional changes and lists of districts, tehsils/talukas/CD Blocks, towns and villages”, issued last week the registrar general and census commissioner of India, Mrityunjay Kumar Narayan, wrote that “the basic purpose of the census being enumeration of all individuals in the country without any omission or duplication, preparation of a complete and updated list of all territorial entities in the entire country well in advance of the next census is required” and set December 31, 2025, as the deadline for freezing the boundaries
Census 2027, for which field exercise will formally begin from April 1 next year, was announced by the ministry of home affairs (MHA) in June this year. A notification for intent to conduct the decadal exercise was issued on June 16.
Narayan asserted that collecting and compiling details of all the jurisdictional changes that have occurred after Census 2011 and that will occur hereafter till freezing of boundaries up to December 31, 2025 is “an important preparatory work” for Census 2027.
{{/usCountry}}Narayan asserted that collecting and compiling details of all the jurisdictional changes that have occurred after Census 2011 and that will occur hereafter till freezing of boundaries up to December 31, 2025 is “an important preparatory work” for Census 2027.
{{/usCountry}}The jurisdictional changes include :creation of new districts, change in jurisdiction of existing districts, de-notification of existing districts, creation of new sub-districts, exclusion of areas from a town, change in name/spelling of any town or districts, creation of new or merging of a village, etc.
The circular sets two deadlines for Directors of Census Operations (DCOs) : they are required to send the details of all jurisdictional changes as on July 1, 2025 (for the period from 01.01.2010 to 30.06.2025) by August 22, 2025. Similarly, information is to be supplied for the period July 1 to December 31, 2025 by January 10, 2026.
“All DCOs may please note that any incompleteness in building up the frame on the basis of these lists may have serious consequences. Extreme care should be taken to ensure accuracy in updating the frame of all administrative units in each state/ Union Territory at all levels down up to town/wards and village,” added the circular.
The registrar general further directed that the “list of villages should include not only inhabited but also uninhabited ones as well as hamlets, if any”.
For towns, the RGI asked DCOs to not only obtain a list of these towns from the concerned state government department but also procure copies of the document (s) for notification/de-notification of towns etc. or effecting jurisdictional changes in the boundaries of the existing towns.
“Further, Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) may be requested to provide geospatial data of ward boundaries, if available,” the circular added.
The 16th Census will be conducted in two phases. In phase one i.e. house-listing operation (HLO), the housing conditions, assets and amenities of each household will be collected. Subsequently, in the second phase i.e. population enumeration (PE), the demographic, socio-economic, cultural and other details of every person in each household will be collected.
The much-delayed Census, which will include caste enumeration, will be completed by March 1, 2027. Officials have said that while the data collection would be over by March 1, 2027, the entire exercise to collate the data and publish it will take two to three years.
The ministry of home affairs has said that the 16th Census will see involvement of about 3.4 million enumerators and supervisors.
It also said that the upcoming census “will be conducted through digital means using mobile applications” and “provision of self-enumeration would also be made available to the people”.
Former RGI, Dr C Chandramouli,said: “As part of the Census exercise, the entire country has to be covered so it is important that there are proper maps and jurisdictional changes in every administrative unit are properly recorded so that enumeration blocks can be determined.”