India’s Long-Pending Census Officially Scheduled for 2027, Gazette Notification Issued
New Delhi, 16th June 2025: Ending years of speculation, the Ministry of Home Affairs has formally announced that the next national census and caste-based enumeration will be conducted in 2027. The notification, issued under the Census Act, 1948, was published in the official Gazette on Monday.
According to the announcement, March 1, 2027, will be treated as the reference date for most parts of the country. However, in snowbound and hilly regions such as Jammu & Kashmir, Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh, and Uttarakhand, the census reference date has been set as October 1, 2026, due to extreme winter conditions that hamper fieldwork.
Census to Be Conducted in Two Phases
The census will take place in two distinct phases:
Houselisting and Housing Census (HLO):
In this phase, officials will collect information about the housing stock, amenities, and assets of each household.
Population Enumeration (PE):
This will involve collecting demographic, socio-economic, and cultural data of every individual residing in the country as of the census reference date.
Process Timeline and Data Release
The Centre has committed to completing the entire census exercise within 21 months.
Preliminary results are expected by March 2027
Detailed and final datasets will be made available towards the end of 2027
Officials confirmed that all data will be based on the midnight status of March 1, 2027, with exceptions for the designated northern regions.
Census After a Gap of 16 Years
India’s last population census was conducted in 2011. The 2021 census, scheduled for a decade later, was postponed indefinitely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, this upcoming enumeration marks a 16-year gap, the longest in independent India’s history.
This census is expected to play a crucial role in shaping policy decisions related to resource allocation, welfare schemes, urban planning, and social justice, especially with the addition of a caste-based enumeration component — a move that has been long demanded by several states and political parties.
