Overview
- The Registrar General of India issued the gazette notification on Friday that formally fixes the 40-question Household Schedule for the population enumeration phase of Census 2027.
- Question 10 lists ‘SC/ST/Caste’ and will record caste as declared in an open, verbatim field, marking the first comprehensive caste count since 1931.
- New items include place of Covid vaccination, total number of bank accounts, mobile number, Aadhaar number, voter ID, passport number and driving licence status, expanding the Census beyond traditional demographic questions.
- The exercise is digital with a self-enumeration window from August 17–31 for snow‑bound areas and house‑to‑house enumeration in Ladakh and specified snowbound districts from September 1–30, while the rest of India is scheduled for February–March 2027.
- The notification is issued under the Census Act, 1948 and officials say individual data will be kept confidential, but experts and opposition leaders have raised concerns about the open caste field, data use, methodology and operational privacy safeguards, and final results are not expected for two to three years.