New Delhi: The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) said the notification to conduct the Census would be published in the official gazette on June 16, 2025. A day ahead of the notification to conduct Census is published in the official gazette, Union Home Minister Amit Shah reviewed the preparation for the exercise on Sunday (June 15, 2025).
Around 34 lakh enumerators and supervisors, and 1.3 lakh Census functionaries would be deployed for the exercise, to be conducted in two phases and which will conclude by March 1, 2027. Census would be conducted through digital means using mobile applications where provision of self-enumeration would also be made available to the people. “Very stringent data security measures would be kept in place to ensure data security at the time of collection, transmission and storage,” it said.
The Census would be conducted in two phases — House Listing Operation (HLO) where, the housing conditions, assets and amenities of each household will be collected, and Population Enumeration (PE), which would capture the demographic, socio-economic, cultural and other details of every person in each household. In Census, caste enumeration would also be done, the MHA said.
On June 4, the MHA announced the commencement of the Census, adding that it would have a reference date of 12 a.m. on March 1, 2027. As per the constitutional mandate, the first Census after 2026 can be used as the basis to redraw Lok Sabha constituencies. The next general election is expected to be held in 2029.
The last census was held in 2011 and the subsequent exercise, scheduled to take place in 2021, was delayed indefinitely, initially due to the COVID-19 pandemic. On April 30, the Union Cabinet had decided to include caste enumeration as part of the next census exercise.
