Union Budget 2026 | Rs 6,000 crore allocated for Census 2027

New Delhi: The Union Budget on Sunday allocated Rs 6,000 crore for Census 2027, with the 16th edition of the mega population head count slated to begin on April 1 after a delay of almost six years because of the Covid outbreak.

The Budget Estimates for 2026-27 presented in Parliament by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman earmarked Rs 6,000 crore for the Census, Survey and Statistics/Registrar General of India (RGI), which is almost a six-fold increase from the Rs 1,040 crore allotted in the Revised Estimates for 2025-26.

“It includes provisions for the office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India and various schemes of the RGI, including the National Population Register (NPR) and expenditure on Census 2027,” the Budget document said.

The Census will be carried out in 2027 with the reference date of October 1, 2026, in snow-bound areas like Ladakh, and of March 1, 2027, in the rest of the country.

“The reference date for the said Census shall be 00.00 hours of the first 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,” a government notification said last year.

In respect of Ladakh and the snow-bound non-synchronous areas, the reference date shall be 00:00 hours of the first day of October 2026, it said.

The massive exercise to collect population-related data from across the country will be carried out by about 30 lakh enumerators and supervisors and around 1.3 lakh census functionaries armed with digital devices.

The decadal exercise, which was scheduled to take place in 2021, was postponed due to the Covid-19 outbreak.

The Census, which will also include caste enumeration this time, is a two-phase exercise – in Phase-1, i.e., Houselisting Operation (HLO), the housing conditions, assets and amenities of each household will be collected.

In Phase -2, i.e., Population Enumeration (PE), the demographic, socio-economic, cultural and other details of every person in each household will be collected, which is scheduled for February 1, 2027. The Caste enumeration will take place during the second phase at the time of Population Enumeration, the Union Home Ministry recently said.

With many firsts planned for Census 2027 – fully digital, option of self-enumeration, etc. – the Cabinet had allocated Rs 11,718 crore for the exercise.

The Registrar General of India has notified 33 questions that will be put to citizens during the first phase of the Census – houselisting and housing census.

The houselisting operations will take place during a window of 30 days, specified by each state and UT between April 1 and September 30 this year.

There will also be an option for self-enumeration to be conducted in 15 days, just before the start of the houselisting operations of 30 days.

The houselisting and housing census systematically lists out all the structures, houses and households throughout the country for the preparation of a sound frame for the conduct of the population enumeration.