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What The Next Census Will Discover

June 05, 2025 08:36 IST

The next Census' findings will help identify the extent of India's ageing population and vulnerability levels.

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IMAGE: A Tiranga Yatra in Guwahati to express solidarity with the Indian armed forces. Photograph: ANI Photo

The upcoming population Census will improve the representativeness of sample surveys conducted to track important economic metrics and the changing equations between urban and rural agglomerations in the country, thus aiding more informed policy making, experts reckoned.

Pronab Sen, former chief statistician of India, says that the recent surveys being conducted by the National Statistics Office (NSO) have become less reliable as they have been drawing their samples from the previous census, which was conducted way back in 2011.

"The new census data will help in improving the samples that are used for NSO surveys, thus increasing their representativeness of the things happening in the Indian economy, particularly on parameters like consumption, health and labour markets," he noted.

T C A Anant, adjunct professor, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, and a former chief statistician, said the Census will be helpful in determining the true extent of urbanisation as well as the gender mix of the population.

"A lot of economic data is based on samples drawn from rural and urban stratums. Data on rural-urban division is quite fuzzy. From the time the last Census was conducted, urbanisation has occurred at a rapid pace and we have been underestimating it since then... so the new data will help define urban-rural areas better," he said.

The next Census' findings will also help identify the extent of India's ageing population and vulnerability levels.

"We have no reliable estimates of the senior citizens in the country, which affects our measure of the penetration of pension products in the country," pointed out Mukesh Anand, assistant professor at the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy.

P C Mohanan, former acting chairman of the National Statistical Commission, said the Census 2027 data will be helpful to arrive at better estimates of employment indicators, particularly for the Periodic Labour Force Surveys (PLFS) and the Reserve Bank of India's KLEMS database.

Moreover, the universal survey's data will also be used to update the National Population Register.

"However, one thing that will be a bit tricky will be the conduct of the caste census, as the government is yet to come up with the methodology and the questionnatre," Mohanan averred.

In 2023, Shamika Ravi, member EAC-PM, had said all major surveys in India that were conducted after 2011, and used the Census 2011 for the sampling frame, have significantly overestimated the proportion of the rural population.

Census Returns in 2 Phases by 2027

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The Centre on Wednesday said that Census-2027 with caste enumeration would be undertaken in two phases across the country, by October 1, 2026 in snow-bound and hilly areas like Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, and by March 1, 2027 in the rest of the country.

The reference date of people's headcount would be March 1, 2027, midnight for the entire country.

The ministry of home affairs statement on conducting Census 2027, which will also be the first digital Census, has come a little over a month after the Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs, on April 30, approved caste enumeration in the forthcoming population census.

Caste data was enumerated the last time as part of the 1931 Census, and was collected as part of the Socio-Economic Caste Census in 2011 but the data was not released because of infirmities.

The last Census was held 16 years ago in 2011. The 2021 Census was initially delayed because of the outbreak of COVID-19.

In 2023, the UN Population Fund had said India was likely to have almost three million more people than China by the middle of that year.

The Census will also have a bearing on the delimitation of the Lok Sabha seats and one-third reservation for women in directly elected legislatures.

However, it is not clear whether the Census data will be available by the time the next Lok Sabha polls are announced.

The provisional data for the 2011 Census was released on March 31, 2011, 25 days after its population enumeration phase ended, while the final data was released two years later on April 30, 2013.

Some of the southern states have demanded a freeze on the number of Lok Sabha seats, based on the 1971 Census, for another 25 years.

In the press statement, the MHA said: 'The reference date for Population Census-2027 will be 00:00 hours of the first day of March 2027...

'For the Union Territory (UT) of Ladakh and the non-synchronous snow-bound areas of the UT of Jammu and Kashmir and states of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, the reference date will be 00:00 hours of the first day of October 2026.'

The notification for the intent of conducting the population Census with these reference dates would be published in the official gazette 'tentatively' on June 16, 2025 as per provision of Section 3 of Census Act 1948, it said.

Officials said the second and final phase of the census would begin in February 2027 and conclude on March 1, 2027 (reference date).

On December 24, 2019, the Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi had approved conducting Census 2021 at a cost of Rs 8,754.23 crore and updating of the National Population Register (NPR) at a cost of Rs 3,941.35 crore.

It was, however, unclear whether Census 2027 would include updating of the NPR.

The entire 2021 Census exercise was estimated to cost the government over Rs 13,000 crore.

The Budget for 2025-2026 allocated Rs 574.80 crore for Census surveys and statistics/the Registrar General of India.

In a post on X, Congress General Secretary (Communications) Jairam Ramesh said, 'There is really no reason to delay the Census that was due in 2021, for another 23 months. The Modi Government is capable only of generating headlines, not meeting deadlines.'

According to the government statement on December 24, 2019, the 2021 Census was to comprise 'House listing and Housing Census from April to September, 2020, and Population Enumeration from February 9 to February 28, 2021'.

It said that the NPR would also be updated along with House listing and Housing Census except in Assam.

As many as 3 million field functionaries were to conduct the exercise, up from 2.8 million in 2011.

It had envisaged use of a mobile app for data collection and the central portal for monitoring purpose, and to ensure early release of Census data with improved quality.

It had said that 2.4 crore man-days employment would be generated during the collection of the data.

Feature Presentation: Ashish Narsale/Rediff

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