First phase of census to begin in April 2026
The Centre has asked states and Union territories to make any proposed changes in the boundaries of administrative units before December 31 this year, when they will be considered final for the census exercise, first phase of which will begin on April 1, 2026. A census official collects information from a household in Guwahati in 2011.(File/AP)
In a letter dated June 27 to all states and UTs, registrar general and census commissioner of India Mritunjay Kumar Narayan said that for the census, all villages and towns are divided into uniform enumeration blocks and for each block, an enumerator is assigned to avoid any miss or repetition during the population count.
'From April 1, 2026, the Houselisting Operation, the appointment of supervisors and enumerators and the work division among them will be done, and on February 1, 2027, the Census of the population will begin,' Narayan said in his letter to chief secretaries of all states and UTs. 'It is important that once enumeration blocks are finalised, boundaries of administrative units are not changed.'
The registrar general further asked the chief secretaries to direct all departments 'to make any proposed changes in the boundaries of municipal corporations, revenue villages, tehsils, sub-divisions or districts before December 31'.
'The states/UTs should ensure that no changes should be made in the boundaries of administrative units between January 1, 2026, and March 31, 2027, during which Census exercise will take place. Any changes in the existing boundaries must be intimated to Census directorates in the states and UTs and Registrar General of India by December 31, 2025. For Census 2027, boundaries of administrative units will be frozen on December 31, 2025,' the letter added.
To ensure a fair workload for enumerators, an administrative unit is divided into manageable sections for the census called 'blocks'. A block is a clearly defined area within a village or town on a notional map for census purposes.
These are termed houselisting blocks (HLBs) during houselisting operations and enumeration blocks (EBs) during population enumeration and serve as the smallest administrative units for the census.
According to the letter, the houselisting operations for the census will begin from April 1, 2026, marking the start of the first phase of the decadal exercise. 'Before that, the appointment of supervisors, enumerators and work distribution among them shall be done with cooperation from states and district administration,' the letter said.
Earlier this month, the office of registrar general of India (ORGI) in a notification announced that the 16th census, which will also include caste enumeration, will be carried out after a gap of 16 years in 2027, with the reference date of October 1, 2026, in snow-bound areas like Ladakh and March 1, 2027, in the rest of the country.
The much-delayed census will be completed by March 1, 2027. Officials have said that while data collection would be over by March 1, 2027, the entire exercise to collate the data and publish it will take two to three more years.
On preparatory activities already done, officials said all states have already constituted census coordination committees (CCCs) under the respective chief secretaries. 'As the Census exercise was originally to take place in 2020, ORGI had already written to states/UTs for forming CCCs in April 2019,' an official said, adding the committees have various departments such as revenue, local administration, municipal corporations, rural development and panchayats, planning education, etc for conducting and monitoring different phases of census.
The pre-test for census — which is conducted prior to each census encompassing all facets to check feasibility of all questions, methodologies, logistics arrangements, processing of data, etc — was also done in 2019.
The ministry of home affairs (MHA) has said that the 16th census will see involvement of about 3.4 million enumerators and supervisors. Besides, around 130,000 census functionaries would be deployed for the exercise. The ministry further said that the upcoming census 'will be conducted through digital means using mobile applications' and 'provision of self-enumeration would also be made available to the people'.
The census will be conducted in two phases. In phase one or houselisting operation, housing conditions, assets and amenities of each household will be collected. Subsequently, in the second phase or population enumeration, the demographic, socio-economic, cultural and other details of every person in each household will be collected.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Time of India
41 minutes ago
- Time of India
NYC Pride March: 2 people shot near Stonewall Inn in Manhattan; ‘devastating incident,' says mayor
AP file photo Two people were shot near the landmark Stonewall Inn, located in Greenwich Village, on Sunday after the NYC pride parade, according to the NYT news service. One victim, who was shot in the head, is in a critical condition, while the second victim, who was shot in the leg, is in a more stable condition, according to a spokesperson for the Police Department. Police have not yet identified the perpetrator and are unsure of whether the shooting is related to the Pride march. The shooting occurred just as Pride celebrations were wrapping up, shortly after the New York City Pride March in Manhattan earlier on Sunday, mayor Eric Adams said on social media. 'During a time when our city should be rejoicing and celebrating members of our diverse LGBTQ+ community, incidents like this are devastating.' Adams posted on X. — NYCMayor (@NYCMayor) Adams, along with Zohran Mamdani, the likely Democratic nominee for mayor, had attended the pride parade earlier that day. The Stonewall Inn, considered a national monument, is a bar on Christopher Street and was supposed to host an event for Pride month from noon to 4 am on that day. Representatives for the bar did not immediately comment on the mishap. Douglas Breland, 47, a bouncer at Barrow Street Alehouse near the Stonewall Inn, texted his mother at 9:48 pm about the quiet night, even sharing a photo of the empty bar. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Free P2,000 GCash eGift UnionBank Credit Card Apply Now Undo Moments later, he stepped outside to film the nearly deserted block. Around thirty minutes later, he had heard four loud cracks, which he initially thought were fireworks, but then heard screams of people running down the block and sirens blaring. He then sent his mother another text saying, "2 people were just shot on the corner 1/2 a block from me.' Hours later, Breland sat in a bar booth, still processing the night's events. Outside, the streets were mostly deserted, except for a few late-night revelers. The police were clearing people away from the scene. The Pride March, attended by millions every year, commemorates the Stonewall riots of 1969, which were born out of a police raid on a gay bar in Manhattan.
&w=3840&q=100)
Business Standard
an hour ago
- Business Standard
MoEF trying to 'subvert' FRA: Over 90 forest rights groups writes to PM
Over 90 forest rights groups have written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, alleging that the Union environment ministry is attempting to "subvert" the Forest Rights Act (FRA) and demanding that Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav clarify his reported statement that the "FRA leads to forest degradation." PTI reached out to the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change for comment. A response is awaited. The groups, comprising Chhattisgarh Bachao Andolan and Himdhara Environment Research and Action Collective of Himachal, among others, said in their June 28 letter, copies of which have been sent to the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes (NCST) and the ministries of Environment, Tribal Affairs and Social Justice, that Yadav, in a statement published in a newspaper on June 5, "cited titles granted under the FRA as a reason for forest degradation." They called the statement "false, misleading, legally untenable and an attempt to undermine the legitimacy of the FRA." They alleged that it is part of a "consistent series of subversion" by the environment ministry, which, along with the forest bureaucracy, has "stiffly resisted and disrupted" the implementation of the FRA for the last 16 years. The groups pointed to a 2009 report submitted by the ministry to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), which said that the FRA had assigned rights to protect approximately 40 million hectares of community forest resources to village-level democratic institutions and that other forest-related laws needed to be fine-tuned in light of the Act. Citing data presented by Yadav in the Lok Sabha on August 7, 2023, the groups alleged that while the minister blamed the FRA, tribals and other forest rights holders for forest degradation, he "conveniently overlooked" the fact that the ministry itself allowed the illegal diversion of over 3 lakh hectares of forest land since 2008 for non-forest activities, leading to deforestation and without complying with the FRA. They further alleged that the ministry submitted legally untenable data on encroachments in Parliament and the National Green Tribunal. The letter claimed that the ministry makes no reference to the FRA or its statutory body, the Gram Sabhas. According to the law, the rights of forest dwellers recognised and vested under the FRA must be determined, demarcated, recognised and recorded. Only after this process is completed can the extent of encroachment be determined and, subsequently, eviction proceedings be initiated under state laws. The FRA prohibits eviction under Section 4(5) without satisfactory completion of this process. The groups also alleged that the National Tiger Conservation Authority, on June 19 last year, ordered the expedited relocation of 64,801 families from core areas of tiger reserves, in "complete violation" of the FRA, the Wildlife Protection Act of 1972 and other applicable legal frameworks. They claimed that this has increased the risk of displacement, forced evictions, curtailment of rights and criminalisation of forest dwellers, pushing many into states of economic and social insecurity across the country. The letter also pointed out that the "India State of Forest Report 2023," published by the Forest Survey of India, blamed titles issued under the FRA for negative changes in forest and tree cover. The groups expressed concern over recent amendments to the Forest Conservation Act, 1980 (now renamed Van Sanrakshan Evam Samvardhan Adhiniyam, 1980), which were passed despite strong opposition from constitutional bodies like the NCST, scientists, conservationists, forest rights groups and forest-dwelling communities. They warned that these changes would "adversely impact India's forest and ecological security". The groups urged the prime minister to immediately halt what they termed as the environment ministry's attempts to subvert the FRA. They also demanded that Yadav publicly clarify and withdraw his statement linking the FRA to forest degradation and that the ministry immediately inform the Supreme Court and the NGT about the legal status of forest encroachments under the FRA, clearly stating that no action on encroachment can be taken until the FRA implementation process is complete.
India Today
2 hours ago
- India Today
How does Indus treaty suspension benefit India? Ministers to explain to public
The central government has decided to launch a public outreach programme to explain how the suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty with Pakistan will benefit the general public, sources said on Monday. Senior Union ministers are expected to directly engage with people, particularly in northern states where future river water usage is expected to be decision to suspend the Indus Waters Treaty was one of several punitive measures taken by New Delhi against Islamabad following the April 22 terrorist attack in Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Water Resources Minister CR Patil, and Environment Minister Bhupendra Yadav are among the Cabinet members who have been tasked with leading this initiative, sources added. The government is reportedly working on a long-term strategy to make better use of the Indus River waters. This includes the construction of a 160-kilometre canal connecting the Chenab river with the Ravi, Beas, and Sutlej river systems. Additionally, a nearly 13-kilometre tunnel is planned to link the Indus with other rivers and canals, enabling water to be transported from Jammu and Kashmir to Punjab, Haryana, and government aims to connect the Indus waters to Rajasthan's Sri Ganganagar within three years. For this, the existing 13 canal systems across Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Haryana, and Rajasthan will be to the government, this will not only increase water availability in these regions but also allow India to utilise surplus water for irrigation and power ministers will reach out to residents in all regions expected to benefit from the increased water supply and assure them that the BJP government's decision will help avert water shortages in the years ahead. A wide-ranging public outreach campaign will be conducted in Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, and Rajasthan to communicate this Indus Waters Treaty, signed in 1960 and brokered by the World Bank, is a water-distribution agreement between India and Pakistan. It allocates control of the eastern rivers (Ravi, Beas, Sutlej) to India and the western rivers (Indus, Jhelum, Chenab) to Pakistan, with specific provisions allowing limited use of each other's allocated rivers.- EndsMust Watch IN THIS STORY#Pakistan#India-Pakistan
