Census 2027 rollout in 11 states from Wednesday: Census Commissioner Mritunjay Kumar Narayan

New Delhi: Census 2027 will roll out in 11 states from April 1. Caste census will be recorded in the second phase, registrar general and census commissioner of India Mritunjay Kumar Narayan said on Monday while insisting on self-enumeration by the respondents. A total of 34 questions has been compiled for respondents. "For the first time, the census will be conducted digitally," he said during a press meet.

"The reference date of Census 2027 is 00:00 hours of March 1, 2027 (for UT of Ladakh and snow-bound non-synchronous areas of UT of Jammu and Kashmir and states of Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh reference date is 00:00 hours of October 1, 2026)," the RGI said.

Census 2027 will be conducted in two phases - phase-I for house listing and housing census; to be conducted from April to September 2026, within a period of 30 days as per the convenience of the state and UTs along with the option of self-enumeration of 15 days just before the 30-day period of house-to-house house-listing. In this phase, information about the condition of houses, amenities and assets possessed will be collected. Questions for this phase were notified in January, as per Narayan.


"Phase-II Population Enumeration will be conducted in February 2027 (UT of Ladakh and snow-bound non-synchronous areas of UT of Jammu and Kashmir and states of Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh will be conducted during September 2026). As decided by CCPA, enumeration of castes will also be done during the second phase of census. In phase-II, information on demographic, socio-economic, education, migration, fertility etc will be collected. The exact dates of the population enumeration and questions to be covered in this phase will be notified in due course," the commissioner stated.

Andaman and Nicobar, Delhi (New Delhi Municipal Council and Delhi Cantonment Board), Goa, Karnataka, Lakshadweep, Mizoram, Odisha, and Sikkim will do the Houselisting and Housing census during April 16 to May 15, 2026, along with a period of 15 days of self enumeration from April 1 to April 15, 2026. Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Chandigarh, Chhattisgarh, and Haryana will start Houselisting census from May 1 to May 30 with period of self-enumeration from April 16 to April 30, 2026.

Enumerators will collect and submit data directly through Mobile App, using their smartphones. Mobile apps as well as the self-enumeration portal will be available in 16 languages, including in Hindi and English.

A portal has been developed for the management and monitoring of various census-related field activities like generation of appointment letter and ID card of enumerators and supervisors and allocation of work to them, management of training to census functionaries, HLB creation, monitoring of the progress of work through dashboard near real-time basis, auto-generation of some census records/ abstracts, etc. Houselisting Blocks (HLBs) will be carved out using a web mapping application. Necessary measures for data security have been taken, the RGI informed.

A pre-test of the first phase of census - full rehearsal of methodology, including appointment and training of field functionaries and other officers/officials of state, questionnaire, relevant apps and portals and all other related activities from data collection to data processing - was conducted in all states/UTs in November 2025.