The government has approved Rs 11,718 crore for conducting the Census 2027, the first digital exercise of its kind, Union Information & Broadcasting Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said Friday. Earlier, the Union Cabinet approved the proposal to conduct the Census at a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The Census 2027, world’s largest administrative and statistical exercise, will be conducted in two phases— the houselisting and housing phase between April and September next year; and population enumeration in February 2027 (for the UT of Ladakh and snow bound non-synchronous areas of UT of Jammu & Kashmir and states of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand in September 2026).
The Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs on April 30 this year had decided to include caste enumeration in the Census 2027, which will be done in the second phase.
Vaishnaw said a gazette notification will be issued in due course about what data fields will be included in the new Census and other such specific details. About 30 lakh field functionaries will complete the exercise. Briefing about the Cabinet decisions, Vaishnaw said Census 2027 will be the 16th in the series and the eighth since Independence. “It will be the first-ever digital Census. The digital design of the Census has been made keeping in mind data protection,” he said.
According to officials, the Census will also collect data on housing condition; amenities and assets, demography, religion, SC & ST status, language, literacy, economic activity, migration and fertility.
Crucial for policies
Being conducted after 16 years (the last Census took place in 2011), the population enumeration exercise will be very telling at a time when inclusivity and representation of all communities is being spoken about by the government and the Opposition parties alike. Since it will tabulate caste census as well, the data collected thus will be crucial for policy-making and social welfare schemes in the coming years.
A government statement Friday said several new initiatives have been taken for the Census 2027. Calling it “the first Census by digital means in the country”, the statement said, “Data will be collected using mobile applications that will be available for both Android as well as iOS versions. A dedicated portal namely Census Management & Monitoring System (CMMS) portal has been developed for managing and monitoring the entire Census process on a real time basis.”
The statement also mentioned a Houselisting Block (HLB) Creator web map application being created for the Charge Officers. “An option to self-enumerate will be provided to the public,” said the statement.
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Also, the government approved the ‘CoalSETU’ window for auction of coal linkages for diverse industrial uses and exports to ensure fair access and optimal utilisation of resource, allowing allocation of coal linkages on an auction basis for long-term for any industrial use and export by adding a separate window named ‘CoalSETU’ in the Non-Regulated Sector Linkage Auction Policy of 2016.
