Overview
- A gazette notification issued on Saturday confirmed population enumeration in Goa, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and non-snow-bound Uttarakhand will be held from December 1, 2026, to January 4, 2027, with a revisional round from January 5 to January 9.
- Residents in those four states will get a self-enumeration window from November 16 to November 30, 2026, and the reference date for that region is fixed at 00:00 hours on January 5, 2027.
- Officials cited overlap between census fieldwork and assembly polls and the shared use of government staff, mainly school teachers, as the reason for moving the schedule earlier to protect election preparations.
- The RGI also formally deferred Census operations in Manipur until further notice, after local protests and demands to update the National Register of Citizens first created operational and political tensions.
- Census 2027 will be held largely as a digital exercise with a 40-question population form that for the first time includes an open field to record caste beyond SC/ST plus new items such as digital ID and COVID-19 vaccination details, which has prompted methodological and political debate.