The Centre on Wednesday announced the conduct of the decadal census, due since 2021, in two phases from next year. The caste census, a demand assiduously pursued by the Opposition, will be part of the exercise.
The decadal census will be carried out with the reference date of October 1, 2026, in snow-bound areas such as Ladakh and Jammu and Kashmir and of March 1, 2027, in the rest of the country, the Union home ministry said in a statement.
The reference date is a specific point in time at which the census data is intended to be a snapshot of the population being counted.
“The reference date for Population Census-2027 will be 00:00 hours of the first day of March 2027: For the Union Territory 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 home ministry statement said.
“It has been decided to conduct Population Census-2027 in two phases along with enumeration of castes,” the statement added.
A ministry source said the census process would begin with the issue of a notification. “The notification of intent to conduct the census will be published in the official gazette on June 16, 2025, tentatively. The second and final phase of the census will begin in February 2027 and conclude on March 1, 2027,” the source added.
The last census was conducted in 2011 in two phases — phase I of house listing (from April 1 to September 30, 2010) and phase II of population enumeration (February 9 to 28, 2011) — “with reference date 00:00 hours of the first day of March 2011, except for snow-bound non-synchronous areas of Jammu and Kashmir, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh for which it was conducted during September 11 to 30, 2010, with reference date as 00.00 hours of the first day of October 2010”.
The ministry said all preparations for the first phase of the census that was to be conducted in 2021 had been completed and field work was scheduled to begin in some states and Union Territories from April 1, 2020. “However, due to the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic across the country, the census work was postponed,” it added.
Delimitation
The delimitation of electoral constituencies is based on the census.
The number of Lok Sabha constituencies has remained at 543 since 1973. The figure was derived from the 1971 census. Two constitutional amendments since then have rewarded states which could rein in their population growth rate. These amendments froze the number of seats as calculated on the basis of the 1971 census, thereby ensuring that states that implement family planning are not penalised by a reduction in their parliamentary seats.
The second of the two amendments took place in 2001, extending the freeze on delimitation until “the figures of the first census taken after the year 2026 have been published”.
Former bureaucrat and MP Jawhar Sircar told The Telegraph: “The census was postponed because delimitation will happen on the basis of the first census after 2026. The Northeast, non-Hindi speaking parts of the east and the south have seen a drop in their population growth rate, while the Hindi belt has seen an increase. The postponement was done so that they (the BJP) have an overwhelming majority in 2029. This will lead to open confrontation between the south and other well-off states versus the Hindi belt and Gujarat.”
The final report of the 2011 census was published in 2013. If the same schedule of publication is followed, it is unlikely that the delimitation exercise will be completed before the next Lok Sabha polls.
Congress communications head Jairam Ramesh posted on X: “There is really no reason to delay the Census that was due in 2021 for another 23 months. The Modi Govt is capable only of generating headlines, not meeting deadlines.”
