Home Minister Amit Shah: 16th census will include caste enumeration for 1st time

New Delhi: Home Minister Amit Shah reviewed the preparations for the 16th Census with Union Home Secretary Govind Mohan and senior officials on Sunday. He took to X later and tweeted: Tomorrow, the gazette notification of the census will be issued. The census will include caste enumeration for the first time. As many as 34 lakh enumerators and supervisors and around 1.3 lakh census functionaries will conduct the operation with cutting-edge mobile digital gadgets.

India's 16th census with caste enumeration will be carried out in 2027, with the reference date of October 1, 2026, in snow-bound areas like Ladakh and of March 1, 2027, in the rest of the country.

The census will be conducted in two phases. In phase one, i.e., Housing Listing Operation (HLO), the housing conditions, assets, and amenities of each household will be collected. For the unversed, this census will be carried out after 16 years, as the last one was done in 2011.