Overview
- Minister of State for Home Affairs Nityanand Rai told Parliament the count will use mobile apps with an option for citizens to self-enumerate via a web portal, managed through a dedicated platform.
- An RGI circular directs states and UTs to complete appointments by January 15, 2026, identify enumerators and supervisors in advance, and keep a 10% reserve for contingencies.
- Each enumerator will cover about 700–800 people under a structure of one supervisor for every six enumerators, deploying roughly 30 lakh field functionaries nationwide.
- Population Enumeration will use a reference date of March 1, 2027 for most areas, with earlier operations in Ladakh, snow-bound parts of J&K, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand using an October 1, 2026 reference date.
- Census 2027 will include caste enumeration and expanded migration questions, use the CMMS portal for real-time monitoring, support multilingual apps, and has completed pre-tests and instructions for slum block demarcation.