The first phase of the census in Bengal will start with the self-enumeration of common citizens between August 1 and 15.
“The first phase of the census has already started in other states, but Bengal is lagging only because the previous government had not issued the notification regarding the census, which is a constitutional obligation. After our government took the oath on May 9, the census notification was issued on May 11. I request all to come forward and participate in the exercise as it is important to prepare government schemes and plans,” chief minister Suvendu Adhikari said at Nabannaon Friday.
He inaugurated a conference of the principal census officers in Bengal at Nabanna Sabhaghar on Friday.
According to the chief minister, the Centre had sent a letter to Nabanna on June 16, 2025, to issue the census notification in the state.
“This could have been done by the then chief secretary. Unfortunately, he waited for the political approval. As the notification was issued on May 11 after we came to power, all other states have gone forward, leaving Bengal behind. Now we have to work hard to catch up with other states,” said Suvendu.
According to the schedule, the house listing would be done in the first phase between August 16 and September 14, when enumerators would visit house-to-house to collect data after self-enumeration is completed on August 15.
In the second phase, population enumeration would be done between February 1 and 21 next year, and the exercise would be completed by midnight of February 28.
The chief minister said that the census was important to prepare development plans for the government as demography was changing fast in Bengal.
“We have 6,00km of borders with Bangladesh where fencing could not be put up because of the lackadaisical approach of the previous government in providing land to the BSF for erecting fencing. You can also see how people are making a beeline for the borders to leave our country. In this background, the census is important for making development plans and schemes,” said Suvendu.
Sources in the administration said the Bengal government would face a stiff challenge in completing the exercise on time as all other states started the first phase of census — mainly listing of houses — and the process was nearing completion inmost states.
“But Bengal could not even start training the officials and enumerators yet. The training of the officers and enumerators would take a few weeks, as the collection of data would be uploaded onto smartphones or tabs directly by the enumerators this year,” said a source.
After the training of the enumerators, self-enumeration will be undertaken for 15 days. Once that is done, the listing of houses will be undertaken, and those who did not participate in the self-enumeration exercise willbe enlisted.
Once these two data sets are available, the verification of the enumeration process will be undertaken in the second phase.
“So, Bengal would have to run the extra mile within the next few months as all other states have already completed the training of the officials and enumerators, and house listing is almost complete in a majority of the states,” said an official.