The cold of winter has set in, and Suman, a teacher in Anivaas village Uttar PradeshHouses and institutions are geotagged after school hours in Bulandshahr district. Glued to her Oppo smartphone, which she bought in 2020, Suman has to capture the latitude and longitude of every house using the compass on its screen. He has to feed these details into the Digital Layout Map (DLM) mobile application.
multi-step process
Recording coordinates is only part of the job. The next task is to ask each household a set of 35 questions, including construction materials used for floors and roofs, consumption of staple grains, source of drinking water, cooking fuel and others. This data is to be stored on another app called Census 2027-Houselist.
Suman and several other teachers, mostly women, have been appointed by the district administration to carry out an important task: testing the country’s first digital census.
This will be India’s first population census since 2011. The exercise, which was originally scheduled for 2021, was delayed indefinitely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Although pandemic-related restrictions are set to end by 2022, the government has offered no explanation for the continued delays.
Under the Constitution, the first census after 2026 can be used as the basis for redrawing Lok Sabha constituencies. The next general election is expected to be held in 2029.
Census officials are conducting a pre-testing exercise of Population Census 2027 in Anupshahr in Bulandshahr district of Uttar Pradesh on November 19, 2025. Photo Credit: RV Murthy
The final count will take place between April 1, 2026, and February 28, 2027. The intention to conduct the census was notified in a gazette on June 16, 2025. This will be done as per the provisions of the Census Act, 1948.
The ongoing testing phase, called “pre-testing” by the government, is divided into two phases. The first – House Listing and Housing Operation (HLO) – is being conducted from November 10-30 in selected areas of all states and Union Territories.
A window for self-enumeration was available from 1-7 November. The second phase, Population Enumeration (PE), has not yet been scheduled.
On 22 August, Registrar-General and Census Commissioner of India (RG&CCI), Mrityunjay Kumar, in a letter to the Directors of Census Operations (DCOs) of all states, called the pre-test a “full dress rehearsal” involving the entire government machinery.
Phase II pre-test
The authorities are yet to finalize the methodology of counting caste for the upcoming census exercise. In 2011, the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government conducted caste census for the first time, separately from the census exercise, but the findings were never made public.
In 2021, the central government filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court that the caste data enumerated in the 2011 Socio-Economic and Caste Census (SECC) was full of “mistakes and inaccuracies”.
Census officials are conducting a pre-testing exercise of Population Census 2027 in Anupshahr in Bulandshahr district of Uttar Pradesh on November 19, 2025. Photo Credit: RV Murthy
While the number of castes recorded in the 1931 census conducted under British rule was 4,147, the SECC showed more than 46 lakh caste surnames. “Considering that some castes may get divided into sub-castes, the total number cannot increase exponentially to this extent,” the affidavit said. It added that such data cannot be relied upon to determine reservation in admissions, employment or elections to local authorities.
While Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes are in the Central List, the challenge is to enumerate the Other Backward Classes, which are in the Central and State Lists. This is one of the reasons why the pre-test is divided into two stages. However, there is no confusion on housing questions.
A pre-test is necessary to test the efficacy of the entire exercise. This includes identifying potential field issues as well as evaluating proposed questions, data collection methods, training effectiveness, logistics, printing processes, and data quality assessment.
In 2019, when the pre-test was conducted for Census 2021, the questions asked for the HLO and PE stages were tested in one go from August 12 to September 30 of the same year. It covered more than 26 lakh people from 76 districts in 36 states and union territories. About 6,000 enumerators and 1,100 observers were engaged from the state governments.
RG and CCI Narayan had earlier informed the states that the boundaries of administrative units would be fixed by December 31. Any changes in the boundaries of tehsils and districts will have to be completed before that.
women on the ground
At the tehsil office in Anupshahr, Bulandshahr, a help desk has been set up to help enumerators understand the pre-test exercise and their role in it. Four women from the Directorate of Census Operations in Lucknow have been deployed in the tehsil, 400 km from the Uttar Pradesh capital, to help enumerators deal with technical glitches or any other problems faced in the field.
A three-day training was also provided to the enumerators, mostly teachers and other government employees at the tehsil office to familiarize them with the digital census process.
Suman, who teaches science to students of classes 1-5 at Aniwas School, says that these days she starts her day at 7.30 in the morning and ends by 5 in the evening. School timings are from 9 am to 3.30 pm. They have to cover 166 houses with an estimated population of around 700 people in Anivaas village for the pre-test exercise. She first geotags homes, then makes a second visit to ask 35 questions.
Sandhya, the ‘lekhpal’ (a clerk in the state revenue department), who is monitoring the exercise, roams the streets with Suman to see if the data is being entered correctly.
Sandhya says, “We have deliberately chosen women to lead the trials. During the day, most women are at home as men are out at work. Women are comfortable asking questions from other women. So it is easier for us.” Every government officer is being given an honorarium of ₹ 10,000 for the pre-test in Anupshahr tehsil office.
Suman says that the entire exercise is monitored digitally by officials from the headquarters in Lucknow. “If you think I can simply fill the data sitting at home, it is not possible. The geocoordinates of each house stored in the DLM app are linked to the Houselist app. So if I am not present at the location, the Houselist app will not accept the data. Moreover, the coordinates are shared in real time,” says Suman.
She further says that they will have to survey the houses roll-wise. “I can’t go from one house to another without getting work done,” she says.
In a letter to all state DCOs in August 2025, RG and CCI had proposed that 25-50% of enumerators in the pre-test would be women. The DCO in the state is the nodal officer for the office of the Registrar General of India. Each DCO will coordinate with the state government on the census.
A census official says it was important for enumerators to get involved in the community, so that they become familiar with the surrounding environment and people. “The teachers and other government officials who have been appointed for this work are already known in the field. But if anyone asks detailed questions, we have trained enumerators to explain the purpose of the exercise for the country,” the official says.
During the training, enumerators were introduced to the questions and given tips on identifying households.
“The kitchen is the basic unit of the house. If there are multiple residents living in a building, the definition of a family is whether they share a kitchen or not. So there can be multiple families in a house. They will be counted based on their kitchen usage,” the official says.
door to door
As Suman enters a lane in Anivaas village to record data on her phone, a door opens to Shalini Sharma, who is pursuing a master’s degree in sociology.
When Suman says she has come for the census, Sharma asks for clarification. Accountant Sandhya explains that this is a pre-test exercise for the census to be held in 2027 and three villages in her district have been selected. “We will ask you how many people are in your family, what material the house is made of, what facilities you have…” Shalini understands that this is being done to determine the future of India.
About 24 lakh enumeration blocks (EBs) finalized for the census scheduled for 2021 are likely to be used for the 2027 census. Each EB usually consists of 150–180 households or 650–800 people. Apart from her smartphone, Suman also keeps a printout of the questions, which she has kept on a writing board. “It’s easier to read questions from paper and then feed the answers into the phone,” she says.
As she moves in, the door is opened by another resident who identifies himself as Om Bir Singh Sisodia. When asked if he knew what the exercise was about, Sisodia says, “I think it’s for voter registration.”
vijaita.singh@thehindu.co.in
Edited by Sunalini Mathew
