Census 2027 | Journey of India’s 1.5 billion headcount

The Government of India has announced the resumption of the decennial population enumeration exercise, originally scheduled for 2021 but delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The upcoming census will be India's first digital census, conducted in two phases: House-listing (2026) and Population Enumeration (2027), and will notably include a caste census, a significant departure from practice since 1931. This delay and the subsequent resumption highlight the critical role of census data in policy formulation, delimitation, and understanding demographic transitions in India.