Phase 1 of Census 2027 completed in 23 States and Union territories

Phase one of the 2027 Census — house listing and housing census (HLO) — has been completed in 23 states and Union territories so far, a government statement said Tuesday.

A 15-day self-enumeration process is underway in Kerala and Nagaland, followed by a field operation starting on July 1 and continuing until July 30, it said.

The field operations for the phase commenced in Himachal Pradesh on Tuesday, and are already underway in Gujarat, Jammu & Kashmir, Ladakh, Puducherry and Uttar Pradesh.

“Residents who have completed self-enumeration are requested to keep their generated self-enumeration ID ready and share the same with the enumerator during the field visit to complete the HLO process. Households that have not opted for self-enumeration will be covered during the physical house-to-house visit by enumerators,” the statement said.

The Rs 11,718 crore census exercise, which is the eighth since Independence, is being conducted in two phases — the first stage is known as house listing and housing census, while the second stage is the population census.

The housing listing and housing census, which started on April 1 and will continue till September 30, will systematically list all structures, houses, and households throughout the country to provide a sound framework for the population enumeration.

In a first, the exercise will be digital, with enumerators using a special mobile application to collect the information.

During the housing listing field operations, enumerators will physically visit each house and building and ask citizens 33 questions about basic facilities in their homes, information about the head of the household, such as name and sex, and ownership status, among others.

For the first time, citizens have also been provided a self-enumeration platform on a specially developed website where they can answer the notified questions, generate an ID and provide it to the field enumerator when they come for verification, saving valuable time.

Every State will have to provide a 15-day window for self-enumeration immediately preceding the month-long field operations during which enumerators will go door-to-door with their questionnaire to collect data.

The State and UTs can choose a period — 15 days of self-enumeration followed by 30 days of field exercise — between April 1 and September 30 to complete the HLO phase.

The second phase of the census — population enumeration — will be conducted in February next year, in which demographic, social, and economic particulars of every person in the country will be recorded. Caste-related questions will also be part of the second phase.

The reference date for Census 2027 will be March 1, 2027, for all States and Union Territories, except for the Union Territory of Ladakh and snow-bound non-synchronous areas of Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, and Uttarakhand, where the reference date will be October 1, 2026.