The central government announced that census work will begin on April 1. A gazette notification regarding this was issued on Wednesday. It has been learned that the entire census work will be conducted digitally in two phases. Mobile applications will be used for data collection. Notably, accepting the opposition's demand, the central government will collect caste-based data in the census for the first time.
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According to the notification, the first phase of the census will begin on April 1 of this year in states and union territories. It will continue until September 30. During this time, there will be a Housing Listing and Housing Census. That is, workers associated with the census will document whether houses are residential or commercial, how many families live there, whether basic facilities like water, toilets, and electricity are available, etc. However, if common people wish, they can upload information themselves. For this, the self-enumeration phase will start 15 days in advance.
In the second phase, the population of houses will be counted. Workers will go house to house from February 2027. They will collect information such as how many people live in each house, their age and date of birth, educational qualifications, profession, language, etc. However, due to weather conditions, the central government has stated that the second phase of work will be completed by September of this year in Ladakh, Jammu-Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, and Uttarakhand.
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This 2027 census will be the country's 16th and the eighth after independence. Through this, the most important primary database will be created at the level of every village, city, and ward in the country. The central government has already allocated ₹11,718 crores for this. The census is conducted in India every ten years. The last census was conducted in 2011. The 2021 census was postponed due to COVID.
The central government has stated that the census will be conducted entirely digitally through special apps on Android and iOS mobile phones. At the same time, the entire process will be monitored on the Census Management & Monitoring System portal. It has been learned that a new web map tool called Block Creator is also being introduced for houselisting.
