The government on Monday issued a notification for conducting India’s 16th census with caste enumeration in 2027, 16 years after the last such exercise in 2011.
The census will be carried out with a reference date of October 1, 2026 in snow-bound areas like Ladakh and March 1, 2027 in the rest of the country, the notification said.
Gold Rate
13 June 2025
“The reference date for the said census shall be 00.00 hours of the 1st day of March, 2027, except for the Union territory of Ladakh and snow-bound non-synchronous areas of the Union territory of Jammu and Kashmir and the States of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand,” it said.
In respect of Ladakh and snow-bound non-synchronous areas of the Union territory of Jammu and Kashmir and the states of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, the reference date shall be 00:00 hours of the 1st day of October, 2026, it said. The massive exercise to give population-related data from across the country will be done by about 34 lakh enumerators and supervisors and around 1.3 lakh census functionaries armed with digital devices. In the census, caste enumeration will also be done, a government statement said.
Provision of self-enumeration would also be made available to the people. Union Home Minister Amit Shah had reviewed the preparation for the census with Union home secretary, Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India Mritunjay Kumar Narayan and other senior officials.
