MeitY, Registrar General Begin Work On Digital Census Portal For 2027

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has begun work on building the digital infrastructure for Census 2027, which has been designated as India’s first fully digital census, NDTV Profit learnt from officials associated with the matter.

MeitY has entered into an agreement with the Registrar General of India to develop a dedicated census portal and associated digital platforms. The initiative will focus on creating specialised applications and systems to support the nationwide exercise.

As part of the project, the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing, a research and development organisation under MeitY, has been tasked with building the core technology stack. This includes developing the main census portal as well as applications that will enable self-enumeration by citizens.

Officials said the consultation process on the requirements and structural design of the portal has already begun. These discussions will define the framework, data architecture and user flows needed to support large-scale digital data collection during the census.

This development comes on the back of the Union Cabinet’s approval on Friday of a financial outlay of Rs 11,728 crore for Census 2027. The exercise will be conducted in two phases beginning next year and will be the 16th census overall and the eighth since Independence. The last census was carried out in 2011.

The population-count exercise will be completed in two phases, with the reference date fixed as March 1, 2027.

The first phase, covering houselisting and housing census, will be conducted between April and September 2026. This phase will collect data on housing conditions, household amenities, availability of vehicles and electricity connections. The exact dates are yet to be finalised and will be decided in consultation with state governments.

The second phase, focused on population enumeration, will be conducted in February 2027. It will capture detailed demographic, socio-cultural and economic information, including age, caste, social status, occupation, fertility and languages.

For Ladakh and snow-bound non-synchronous areas of Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, the enumeration exercise will be conducted earlier, in September 2026, according to an official release.

With consultations underway and funding in place, the government is positioning Census 2027 as India’s most technology-driven population exercise yet, combining scale with digital precision.