Overview
- India began the first phase Wednesday, using mobile apps and an optional online portal as more than three million workers start collecting housing and household details.
- The operation runs in two stages, with a 2027 phase planned to record income, schooling, migration and fertility for the full population.
- Officials say the new database will guide welfare budgets, target services, and shape infrastructure projects.
- The questionnaire adds a caste field, a sensitive step that critics warn could reopen social rifts, and it would be the first detailed caste count since 1931.
- India, now estimated by the UN at well over 1.4 billion people, postponed the census from 2021 because of COVID-19, logistical hurdles and election schedules.