NEW DELHI, October 30 (Aalimi Nation) – The Registrar General of India and Census Commissioner has notified that the Census 2027 population enumeration will be held from January 25 to February 28, 2027, in most of the country, with a reference date of 00:00 hours on March 1, 2027.
The notification, issued on Friday, states that "the conduct of population census shall be undertaken from January 25, 2027, to February 28, 2027." It was signed by Mritunjay Kumar Narayan, who holds the office of Registrar General and Census Commissioner.
Census 2027 dates and self-enumeration
Residents will be able to fill in their own details online from January 10 to January 24, 2027, before enumerators begin house-to-house visits. After the main round, a revisional round is scheduled from March 1 to March 5, 2027.
The notification applies to all States and Union Territories except those listed as exclusions. These are Manipur, which is excluded "till further declaration", along with Goa, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Uttarakhand and Ladakh. The snow-bound non-synchronous areas of Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir are also outside the January-February window.
Why some regions are excluded
The exclusions cover poll-bound and snow-bound regions. Assembly elections are due early next year in several of the states named, which would place heavy demands on the administrative machinery, while winter conditions make field work difficult in high-altitude areas. The notification as made public does not say when these areas will be counted, and no alternative schedule has been announced.
In Manipur, the Registrar General had already deferred house-listing operations in a notification issued last month.
Two phases and a long wait
The exercise is the eighth census since Independence and is being conducted in two phases. The first, house-listing and housing census, began on April 1, 2026. The second, population enumeration, is the stage that collects individual-level details such as age, gender, occupation and literacy. The government has said that caste enumeration will form part of the exercise.
The census was originally due in 2021 but was postponed because of the Covid-19 pandemic. The previous count, in 2011, recorded about 1.21 billion people, including 62.32 crore males and 58.75 crore females, living in 24.95 crore households. With the announcement, the country is set to hold its first census in 16 years.
The Union Cabinet has approved ₹11,718 crore for the exercise, which is expected to be the largest headcount in India's history.
Households can expect the self-enumeration facility to open on January 10, two weeks before enumerators begin their rounds on January 25. Enumeration in the excluded states and Union Territories will follow on dates that are yet to be notified.
Once the data is collected, the revisional round in the first week of March is meant to correct omissions and errors before the figures are compiled. The reference date of March 1, 2027, means the count reflects the population as it stands at midnight that day.
