Census 2027 to Be Held From January 25 to February 28, Reference Date March 1

India’s next population census will be conducted from January 25 to February 28, 2027, except in specified election-bound and snow-bound regions, the Registrar General of India (RGI) announced on Friday.

According to a notification issued by Census Commissioner Mritunjay Kumar Narayan, the reference date for the nationwide exercise will be 00:00 hours on March 1, 2027. The revisional round will take place from March 1 to March 5, the notification said.

The schedule excludes Manipur, until further orders, Goa, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Uttarakhand and Ladakh, as well as snow-bound non-synchronous areas of Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir.

An option for self-enumeration will be available from January 10 to January 24, immediately before the house-to-house population enumeration begins.

Assembly elections are due in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Goa and Manipur early next year, requiring separate arrangements for the census exercise in these regions.

The Census 2027, the eighth population census since Independence, will be conducted in two phases: house listing and housing census, followed by population enumeration. The Centre had deferred house-listing operations in Manipur, with a separate notification issued last month.

Originally scheduled for 2021, the decennial census was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Union Cabinet has approved Rs 11,718 crore for the exercise, which is expected to be the country's largest headcount operation.

India's last census was conducted in 2011, when the country's population was recorded at approximately 1.21 billion. The headcount included 62.32 crore males and 58.75 crore females, while the number of households stood at 24.95 crore.