New Delhi, The first phase of India's upcoming and 8th census after independence will start from April 1, 2026, in which the counting of houses across the country will be done. The Registrar General of India gave this information.

Census Commissioner and Registrar General of India, Mrityunjay Kumar Narayan, in a letter to the Chief Secretaries of all the states and union territories, has informed that the House-listing Operation (HLO) and Housing Census will start from April 1, 2026. In this phase, information related to the residential status, property and available facilities of each house will be collected.

The census will be conducted in two phases

First phase (from April 1, 2026): House listing campaign

In this phase, details will be collected about the residential status of households, property information, and ownership of available facilities such as phone, internet, vehicles (bicycle, scooter, motorcycle, car, jeep, van), and other appliances (radio, TV, transistor).

Apart from this, people will also be asked about grain consumption, source of drinking water and light, type and availability of toilets, wastewater disposal, bathing and kitchen facilities, fuel used for cooking and LPG/PNG connection.

Additional questions such as the material used for the floor, walls and roof of the house, its condition, number of people living in the house, number of rooms, presence of married couples and whether the head of the household is a woman or belongs to Scheduled Caste or Tribe will also be asked.

Second phase (from February 1, 2027): Population census

In this phase, demographic, socio-economic, cultural and other details of each person in every household will be collected.

This phase will be with a reference date of October 1, 2026 in snowy areas like Ladakh and a reference date of March 1, 2027 in the rest of the country.

Provision of digital and self-enumeration

The feature of the upcoming census is that it will be done digitally with the help of 'mobile application'. This is a big change from the traditional paper process. Self-enumeration provision will also be made available to the citizens, so that they can enter their information themselves. The Office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner has prepared about three dozen questions to be asked from the citizens.

There will be no change in the boundaries of administrative units

To ensure the accuracy and smooth conduct of the census work, the Central Government has directed the states and union territories to complete any proposed changes in the boundaries of administrative units before December 31, 2025. Changes made after this will not be considered final for the census work.

Census Commissioner and Registrar General of India, Mrityunjay Kumar Narayan, has clarified in his letter that all villages and towns are divided into uniform enumeration blocks for the census, and an enumerator is appointed for each block, so that any omission or duplication can be avoided during the census of the population. According to the rules, the census can be done only after three months of determining the boundaries of administrative units such as district, sub-district, tehsil, taluka and thana.

The Chief Secretaries have been asked to ensure that no changes should be made in the boundaries of administrative units between January 1, 2026 and March 31, 2027, during which the census work will be done. Any change in the existing boundaries has to be reported to the Census Directorates of the States and Union Territories and the Registrar General of India by December 31, 2025.

There will be deployment on a large scale
More than 34 lakh enumerators and supervisors and about 1.3 lakh census workers will be deployed to successfully complete the census work. This will be the 16th census till date and the 8th census after independence.