The Centre decided to prepone the population enumeration exercise of the Census 2027 in Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Goa and Uttarakhand, four states where the assembly elections are due next year, according to a notification issued on Saturday.
The move is significant as the population enumeration phase for the entire country (except snowbound states and areas) is otherwise scheduled to be held in February next year. The decision indicates that the assembly elections in these four states - expected in the first quarter of 2027 - are likely to be conducted as per the existing schedule rather than being postponed due to overlapping with the Census exercise.
“The conduct of Census of the population shall be undertaken in the States of Goa, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and areas other than snow-bound areas of Uttarakhand, from December 1, 2026 to January 4, 2027 with a revisional round from January 5 to January 9,” according to a gazette notification issued by Mrityunjay Kumar Narayan, the registrar general of India, regarding the decision to advance the phase.
A revision round is a short follow-up after the main field visits where enumerators go back to the houses to update the population count. It has been done historically and is meant to keep the data updated, in case there are any changes in the household since the first visit.
{{/usCountry}}A revision round is a short follow-up after the main field visits where enumerators go back to the houses to update the population count. It has been done historically and is meant to keep the data updated, in case there are any changes in the household since the first visit.
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The self-enumeration facility in these four states, RGI added on Saturday, will be available from November 16 to November 30 this year, just before the field visits by enumerators begin.
The change in dates for population count in these four states has advanced the reference date - the point at which all the data collected is treated as valid. According to the notification, the reference date for Goa, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and areas other than snowbound areas of Uttarakhand “shall now be 00.00 hours of January 5, 2027”.
As announced by the government in June last year, the population enumeration for the rest of the country will take place in February while it is currently underway in Ladakh, and snowbound areas of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand. As previously decided, the reference date for the rest of the country will be March 1, 2017. It is October 1 this year for Ladakh, and snowbound areas of J&K, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand.
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Officials who didn’t want to be named said “the dates for poll-bound states have been advanced to have manpower available for elections as well as Census, because a large number of staff used in both the exercises are teachers or state government staff”.
In a separate notification on Saturday, the RGI notified its earlier decision to defer the Census exercise in Manipur “till further declaration”.
The Union government had taken the decision on August 31 to defer the Census in Manipur amid mounting violence and demands by large chunks of the population to update the National Register of Citizens (NRC) before conducting the population enumeration exercise.
The Census, originally scheduled for 2021, was postponed because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Census 2027 is also the first to be conducted using digital tools, with enumerators using a dedicated mobile application alongside the traditional door-to-door process.