Cabinet Approves ₹11,718-cr budget for Census 2027
The Union cabinet approved ₹11,718 crore for Census-2027, with data collection to start in 2026, critical for policy planning and governance.
New Delhi: The Union cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on Friday approved ₹11,718 crore for conducting the Census-2027 --- data which will be critical for planning, formulation of policies and effective public administration.
“India’s Census is considered the largest administrative and statistics exercise in the world. It is a very important exercise and the biggest source of primary data for various parameters. The last Census was conducted in 2011 and Census 2021 could not be done due to Covid-19. Today, the cabinet led by PM Modi has approved a budget of ₹11,718 crore for Census-2027,” said Union minister of IT, railway and I&B Ashwini Vaishnaw at a press briefing after the cabinet meeting on Friday.
The minister said there will be two phases of Census-2027, house-listing and housing census from April to September, 2026; and population enumeration (PE) in February 2027. “We believe in cooperative federalism and thus, this exercise will be carried out in coordination with the state governments, according to their convenience about the dates,” he said.
An official familiar with the amount approved by the cabinet for Census 2027 said “the original estimate for conducting the decadal exercise was actually around ₹12,000 crore only. The last Census in 2011 was conducted at a budget of ₹2,200 crore.
In a post on X, Union home minister Amit Shah said, “The outcome of the Census 2027 will serve as the new compass for development, mirroring India’s latest population data with more accuracy. The precision in data will accelerate Modi Ji’s vision of delivering the benefits of good governance and development to citizens of every demographic denomination, making the slogan of ‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas’ a grand reality of New India in the Amrit Kaal.”
The much-delayed 16th census, which will include caste enumeration, will be completed by March 1, 2027 in two phases. In phase one i.e. HLO (houselisting operation), the housing conditions, assets and amenities of each household will be collected from April 1, 2026. Subsequently, in the second phase i.e. PE (population enumeration), the demographic, socio-economic, cultural and other details of every person in each household will be collected from February 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. A gazette notification for the intent of conducting the exercise was issued on June 16.
Since then, the registrar general of India (RGI) has already conducted the pre-test for the Census and issued six circulars with various directions to the states/union territories, freezing administrative boundaries.
Vaishnaw asserted on Friday that Census 2027 will be the first digital exercise of its kind, which will not only help in making available the data in the shortest possible time across the country but also help generate employment for 10.2 million human days as 3 million field functionaries will be involved.
“The current endeavour would be to make available the coming Census data at the shortest possible time across the country. Efforts will also be made to disseminate Census results with more customized visualization tools,” said a statement issued by the Press Information Bureau.
“To complete various tasks for successful conduct of Census 2027, approximately 18,600 technical manpower will be engaged for about 550 days at the local levels. In other words, around 1.02 crore man-days employment would be generated. Further, the provision of technical manpower at charge/district/state level will also result in capacity building as the nature of the job will be related to digital data handling, monitoring and coordination. This will also help in future employment prospects of these persons,” the statement added.
The government further said that use of mobile applications for data collection and the central portal for monitoring purposes will ensure better quality data in Census-2027. “Data dissemination will be much better and in a user-friendly way so that all the queries on required parameters for policy making will be made available on the click of a button,” said.
“Census-as-a-service (CaaS) will deliver data to ministries in a clean, machine-readable and actionable format,” the minister said.
Further detailing the Census process, the PIB said it will involve visiting each and every household and canvassing a separate questionnaire for houselisting and housing Census and population enumeration.
“The enumerators, generally government teachers and appointed by the state governments, will be doing the field work of Census in addition to their regular duties. Other Census functionaries at sub-district, district and state levels will also be appointed by the state/district administration,” it said.
Census, the government said, “will have a focused and wider publicity campaign for nationwide awareness, inclusive participation, last-mile engagement and support for field operations”.
“It will emphasize on sharing accurate, authentic and timely information ensuring cohesive & effective outreach effort,” it said.
The cabinet committee on political affairs had, on April 30, decided to include caste enumeration as well in the Census. “With the huge social and demographic diversity in our country and related challenges, the Census 2027 will also capture Caste data electronically in second phase, i.e. PE,” it said.
The decadal census is always important but this particular round will hold outsized significance because this enumeration will act as the basis for the redrawing of Lok Sabha constituencies, according to officials.
This process, called delimitation, is expected to be fractious and open up old disputes of political representation between India’s poorer northern states that are more populous, and prosperous southern provinces where birth rates are below replacement levels.
Earlier, the 2011 exercise covered 640 districts, 7,935 towns and over 600,000 villages.
