India to Conduct First-Ever Digital Census in 2027
Under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Union Cabinet approved the proposal for Census 2027 on Friday. The proposal outlines that the first-ever digital census will be conducted at a cost of ₹11,718.24 crore. This will be a two-phase process.
In the first phase, housing enumeration will take place between April and September 2026, followed by the population count in February 2027. The second phase will also include the electronic collection of caste data. Notably, in Union Territories like Ladakh, and snow-affected areas of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, and Uttarakhand, the second phase of the census will be conducted in September 2026.
Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting, Ashwini Vaishnaw, stated that the government has devised a detailed framework to manage the challenging task of census in a country with such diverse social and demographic characteristics. Approximately 30 lakh regional staff will be deployed for the census. Enumerators, who are usually government teachers appointed by state governments, will carry out the fieldwork in addition to their regular duties.
Second-level census officials at sub-district, district, and state levels will also be appointed by the state and district administrations. The government claims that using mobile apps for data collection and a central portal for monitoring will improve data quality.
Data dissemination will be done in a more user-friendly and efficient manner, so that necessary data for policymaking can be obtained with just one click. Ministries will be provided with clear, machine-readable, and actionable data formats.
The opposition had wanted to raise the issue of caste-based census as a major political topic. In light of this, the Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs decided on April 30, 2025, to include caste data in the upcoming Census 2027. This will be part of the second phase (Population Enumeration or PE) of the census, where caste data will be collected electronically.