The Union budget on Sunday allocated ₹6,000 crore for the long-awaited population census, scheduled to begin on April 1 after a delay of more than five years.

The population count, which will include a caste enumeration for the first time, will be conducted in two phases, the first between April 1 and September 30, 2026, and the second in February 2027.

It will be the country’s first fully digital census and will use mobile apps, with a provision for self-enumeration.

Population censuses are supposed to take place every 10 years, but there has been none since 2011.

The first phase of the census — house-listing and housing census — will gather information about each household’s assets, amenities and housing conditions.

Every individual in every household will have their demographic, socioeconomic, cultural, and other information gathered during the second phase (population enumeration).

About 32 lakh enumerators, mostly schoolteachers, and supervisors as well as 1.3 lakh census functionaries will capture the data on mobile phones.

The allocation of ₹6,000 crore marks a nearly a six-fold increase from the ₹1,040 crore allocated for the census in the revised estimates for 2025-26.

“It includes provisions for the office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India and various schemes of the RGI, including the National Population Register (NPR) and expenditure on Census 2027,” the budget document said.

Last December, the cabinet had approved ₹11,718 crore for the census.

The Registrar General has announced the 33 questions that people will be asked during the first part of the census.

These include whether a family has a telephone, Internet connection, mobile or smartphone, bicycle, scooter or motorcycle, car, jeep or van.

People will be asked what cereals they eat at home, their main sources of drinking water and lighting, access to toilet, type of toilet, waste-water outlets, bathing facilities, availability of kitchen and LPG/ PNG connections, the main fuel used for cooking, and the availability of a radio, transistor or television.

They will also be asked about the materials used predominantly to build the floor, walls and roof of their house, the condition of the house, the number of members of the household, whether the head of the household is a woman, Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe, the number of dwelling rooms exclusively in possession of the household, and the number of married couple(s) in the household.