New Delhi: The Union Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on Friday approved the scheme for conducting the Census of India 2027 at an estimated cost of ₹11,718.24 crore, marking a major step towards India’s first fully digital census exercise.
According to the government, Census 2027 will be conducted in two phases. The Houselisting and Housing Census will take place from April to September 2026, followed by Population Enumeration in February 2027. For the Union Territory of Ladakh and snow-bound non-synchronous areas of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, population enumeration will be carried out in September 2026.
The census, described as the world’s largest administrative and statistical exercise, will involve around 30 lakh field functionaries, including enumerators, supervisors and census officers at sub-district, district and state levels. Most enumerators will be government teachers appointed by state governments, performing census duties in addition to their regular responsibilities.
For the first time, census data will be collected entirely through digital means using mobile applications compatible with Android and iOS platforms. A dedicated Census Management and Monitoring System (CMMS) portal has been developed to oversee operations in real time, while a Houselisting Block Creator web map application will assist charge officers in field planning. Citizens will also be given the option of self-enumeration.
The government said the use of digital tools and a central monitoring system will improve data quality, speed up dissemination and enable user-friendly access to census data for policymaking. Under the proposed “Census-as-a-Service” framework, data will be made available to ministries in clean, machine-readable and actionable formats, with information accessible down to the village and ward level.
The Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs had earlier decided, in its meeting on April 30, 2025, to include caste enumeration in Census 2027. Caste data will be collected electronically during the second phase of population enumeration.
The census exercise is also expected to generate significant employment. The government estimates that around 18,600 technical personnel will be engaged for about 550 days at local levels, translating into nearly 1.02 crore man-days of employment. Officials said the engagement will also help build digital and administrative capacity among personnel, improving future employment prospects.
Census 2027 will be the 16th census of India and the eighth since Independence. Conducted under the Census Act, 1948 and Census Rules, 1990, it remains the primary source of granular data on housing conditions, amenities, demography, religion, Scheduled Castes and Tribes, language, literacy, economic activity, migration and fertility across the country.
