Census 2027: house-to-house headcount from January 25, but four poll-bound states wait

Census workers will begin knocking on doors across most of India on January 25, 2027, to count every resident for the first time in 16 years, under a schedule notified by the Office of the Registrar General of India on Friday, October 30.

The house-to-house population count will run until February 28, after a two-week window in which households can count themselves online. But five states and parts of the Himalayan region are not in this main schedule. Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Goa and Uttarakhand, all due to hold Assembly elections, will be counted separately, as will Ladakh and the snow-bound areas of Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir. Manipur has been left out until further notice.

What happened

The notification, issued under the Census Act, 1948, by Registrar General and Census Commissioner Mritunjay Kumar Narayan, sets out the second and main phase of Census 2027: population enumeration, in which each person's details are recorded, according to India TV and IANS reports carried by the Free Press Journal and Telangana Today.

For most states and union territories, the schedule is:

- Online self-enumeration: January 10 to January 24, 2027 - House-to-house enumeration by census staff: January 25 to February 28, 2027 - Revisional round, to check and correct entries: March 1 to March 5, 2027

The census will describe the population as it stood at 00:00 hours on March 1, 2027, the reference date. Officials said the process would combine digital self-enumeration with the traditional door-to-door visit, the reports said.

States not named in the exclusions, including West Bengal, Bihar, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and the north-eastern states other than Manipur, follow this main timetable. For residents, the practical change from 2011 is the option to fill in their own details online before an enumerator calls.

Who is left out, and why

The notification excludes, "for the time being", Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Goa, Uttarakhand, Manipur, the union territory of Ladakh, the snow-bound "non-synchronous" areas of Himachal Pradesh, and Jammu and Kashmir, according to the IANS report. Officials quoted by IANS gave two reasons: states heading into elections need their administrative machinery for the polls, and snow-bound areas are hard to reach in winter. The notification says the census in the poll-bound states and Manipur will be conducted later; alternative dates are to be announced separately.

Reports differ on what that later schedule will be. The Daily Jagran, citing the Census of India website, reported a separate, earlier timetable for Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Goa and the non-snow-bound parts of Uttarakhand: self-enumeration from November 16 to 30, 2026, house-to-house counting from December 1, 2026 to January 4, 2027, and a revisional round from January 5 to 9. The IANS report says only that dates for those states will be announced separately. The Declaration could not confirm the earlier timetable in the notification itself.

For Manipur, the census has been deferred "till further declaration". The Daily Jagran separately reported that the Centre had earlier deferred the house-listing exercise in the state after protests linked to fears over a National Register of Citizens.

Background

India last counted its people in 2011, when the population stood at 1.21 billion in 24.95 crore households, according to the Daily Jagran. The census due in 2021 was postponed because of the Covid-19 pandemic, the first postponement of a decennial census since 1871. The Union Cabinet has approved Rs 11,718 crore for Census 2027, the Daily Jagran reported.

The census runs in two phases. The first, house listing and housing census, began on April 1, 2026 and ran state by state until the end of September, with each state given a 30-day door-to-door window, preceded by an optional 15-day online self-enumeration. West Bengal's self-enumeration window for house listing ran from August 1 to 15.

The 2011 count recorded 62.32 crore males and 58.75 crore females.

This is the first Indian census to offer self-enumeration through an online portal, and the first since 1931 to record caste. The Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs took the decision to enumerate caste in April 2025; respondents will record their individual jati, not only whether they belong to a Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe. The population enumeration questionnaire has about 40 questions.

The count matters beyond statistics. Under existing law, the first census after 2026 is expected to be the basis for redrawing Lok Sabha and Assembly constituencies and for putting into effect the reservation of one-third of seats for women.

Ahead of the notification, Mr Narayan had on October 26 told state and union territory census directorates not to release census data or population figures to the press, citing Section 15 of the Census Act, which keeps individual returns confidential, India TV reported. Census information may be used only for statistical purposes.

What happens next

The online self-enumeration window for the main schedule opens on January 10. Households that do not count themselves online will be covered in the door-to-door round from January 25, and the revisional round in early March is meant to catch anyone missed and correct errors.

Dates for the excluded states and for the snow-bound areas are still to be formally announced. Provisional population figures are generally expected by late 2027, with final tables to follow later, though no official date has been set.

Key numbers

- 16 years since the last census, in 2011 - 1.21 billion: India's population in 2011 - Rs 11,718 crore: approved budget for Census 2027 (Daily Jagran) - 35 days: length of the main house-to-house count, January 25 to February 28 - 00:00 hours, March 1, 2027: the reference date