POPULATION census will be conducted across India, except in poll-going and snowbound regions, from January 25 to February 28, 2027, the Census Commissioner announced on Friday. According to an official notification, the reference date for the census shall be 00:00 hours of March 1, 2027. In all States and Union Territories, except Manipur (till further declaration), Goa, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Ladakh and the snow-bound non-synchronous areas of Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir, the conduct of the population census shall be undertaken from January 25, 2027, to February 28, 2027, a notification issued by Mritunjay Kumar Narayan, Registrar General of India (RGI) and Census Commissioner, said. The “revisional round” for the census will be held from March 1, 2027, to March 5, 2027, it said.

 

There will be an option for self-enumeration from January 10, 2027, to January 24, 2027, just before the start of house-to-house population enumeration, the notification said. Assembly elections are due in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Goa and Manipur early next year. The census, the eighth since Independence, is being conducted in two phases: house listing and housing census, and population enumeration. The decennial exercise, scheduled for 2021, was postponed due to the Covid-19 outbreak. The Union Cabinet approved Rs 11,718 crore for conducting the census, which will be the biggest headcount exercise. The Centre has deferred house-listing operations for Census 2027 in Manipur, a notification issued by the RGI said last month. India’s last census was conducted in 2011 with a headcount of 1.21 billion people, including 62.32 crore males and 58.75 crore females. The country had 24.95 crore households at that time.