The Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has notified the schedule for the 2027 Census and finalised the questionnaire for the houselisting and housing phase of data collection.
On January 22, the Office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India issued the notification, stating that the Census 2027 will be conducted between April 1 and September 30. The ministry has also approved 33 questions that were earlier proposed for the 2021 Census, which was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The first phase of the census, known as houselisting and housing census, will include 33 items covering building identification, materials used for floors, walls and roofs, the condition and use of houses, household size, ownership status and the number of dwelling rooms. Census officials will collect the information using a standardised household listing schedule within their assigned areas.
The questionnaire will also capture details of the head of the household, including gender and social category, along with information on basic amenities such as drinking water, electricity, toilets, bathing facilities, kitchens, LPG and PNG connections, cooking fuel, wastewater outlets and sanitation facilities.
Reflecting the growing importance of digital infrastructure, the form includes questions on access to communication and transport facilities such as mobile phones, internet connectivity, computers, televisions and vehicles. The notification clarified that mobile numbers will be collected strictly for census-related communication.
The census will be conducted in two phases. The first phase, covering houselisting and housing census, will run from April 1 to September 30, 2027. The second phase, involving population enumeration, will be carried out from October 1 to March 2027 in Ladakh and snow-bound areas of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand.
The population enumeration phase will also include caste-related data collection, marking the first caste census since 1931.