16th census to be held in two phases beginning from 1st October 2026

The Government yesterday issued a notification to conduct the Census. The notification issued by the Home Ministry said, the reference date for the census shall be 1st 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. For these areas, the reference date shall be 1st October, 2026. The Census will be conducted in two phases.

The phase one is House listing Operation, in which the housing conditions, assets and amenities of each household will be collected. In the second phase which is Population Enumeration, the demographic, socio-economic, cultural and other



details of every person in each household will be collected. In this Census, Caste enumeration will also be done. For Census activities, about 34 lakh enumerators and supervisors and around 1.3 lakh Census functionaries will be deployed. The ensuing Census will be conducted through digital means using mobile applications.

Provision of Self-enumeration would also be made available to the people. Very stringent data security measures would be kept in place to ensure data security at the time of collection, transmission and storage. This Census will mark the 16th national Census since its inception and the eighth since India’s independence.