Census 2027 will be conducted in two phases between April 2026 and February 2027 with a digital rollout.

Census 2027 will be conducted in two phases, the first between April and September 2026 and the second in February 2027, the Lok Sabha was informed on Tuesday.

Giving details of the exercise in response to a question from Congress MP Rahul Gandhi, Minister of State for Home Nityanand Rai said there will be two phases – Phase I-House Listing and Housing Census, followed by Phase II-Population Enumeration (PE).

The first phase will be conducted over a period of 30 days from April to September 2026 as per the convenience of the State/UT Governments.

“The population census will be conducted in February 2027 with reference date 00:00

hours of March 1, 2027 except in the snow covered non-synchronous areas of Union Territory of Ladakh and Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand states, where it will be in September, 2026 with the reference date being 00.00 of October 1, 2026,” he said.

The minister said that the census questionnaire is finalized on the basis of

Inputs and suggestions from various ministries, departments, organizations and census data users before each exercise.

The minister said the history of the census is more than 150 years old and learnings from previous exercises will be taken into account while conducting the next census.

In a separate question, the minister said caste enumeration will also be done in the census as was decided by the Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs on April 30 this year.

In another response, the minister said Census 2027 will be conducted through digital medium with online provision for self-enumeration as well as data collection through mobile apps.