If budgetary proposals are anything to go by, the decadal census is unlikely to be carried out in 2025 as well with a meagre Rs 574.80 crore allocated for the exercise in the Budget presented on Saturday.
A meeting of the Union Cabinet on December 24, 2019 had approved the proposal for conducting census of India 2021 at a cost of Rs 8,754.23 crore and updating the National Population Register (NPR) at Rs 3,941.35 crore.
The house listing phase of the census and the exercise to update the NPR were scheduled to be carried out across the country from April 1 to September 30, 2020 but were postponed due to the COVID-19 outbreak.
The census operation continues to be on hold and the government has not yet announced the new schedule.
The Budget 2025-26, presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday, allocated Rs 574.80 crore for Census, Surveys and Statistics/Registrar General of India (RGI), a significant reduction from the Budget 2021-22 when Rs 3,768 crore was allocated, and an indication the decadal exercise may not be carried out even after this significant delay.
The allocation under the head was Rs 572 crore in 2024-25.
According to officials, the entire census and NPR exercise is likely to cost the government more than Rs 12,000 crore.
This exercise, whenever it happens, will be the first digital census giving the citizens an opportunity to self-enumerate.
