India's first digital census has crossed a major groundwork milestone: the Registrar General of India (RGI) has digitally mapped 24.25 lakh Houselisting Blocks (HLBs) across the country to facilitate Census 2027, PTI reported, citing an official communique. The blocks are micro-units of up to about 800 people each.

Source: PTI

The mapping was carried out using the Houselisting Block Creator (HLBC) web mapping application, an ancillary application of the Census Management and Monitoring System (CMMS), which was developed to monitor the census exercise in near real time, PTI reported. Each block normally covers about 150 to 200 households, and each HLB will normally serve as an Enumeration Block (EB) for the population count, Deccan Herald reported.

Source: Deccan Herald

RGI and Census Commissioner Mrityunjay Kumar Narayan said the digital demarcation had created a geospatial framework for the exercise. In a letter to states and Union Territories, he said the remaining mapping work must be completed before population enumeration begins — correcting administrative unit boundaries, resolving overlapping HLBs, identifying uncovered habitation areas, splitting blocks with excessive enumerator workloads into Sub-Enumeration Blocks, and preparing Supervisory Circle Maps.

Source: PTI

Narayan said timely completion of the work was essential to ensure complete geographical coverage without omissions or duplication, and to ensure operational preparedness for population enumeration. The Houselisting Operation (HLO), the first phase of Census 2027, has been completed across all states and Union Territories except Manipur, where the Centre has deferred house-listing operations under an RGI notification issued last month, PTI reported.

Source: PTI

The communique also sets out the count schedule that follows from the mapping: population enumeration in Goa, Uttar Pradesh and Punjab, and in areas other than the snow-bound parts of Uttarakhand, will take place from December 1, 2026 to January 4, 2027 because of assembly elections; in Ladakh and the snow-bound areas of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand it was conducted from September 1 to 30; and in the rest of the country it is scheduled from January 25 to February 28, 2027 — the window the government had already notified earlier, as Awaaz Punjab reported on October 30.

Source: PTI

The decennial census was originally scheduled for 2021 and was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Union Cabinet has approved Rs 11,718 crore for the exercise, which will be the country's first fully digital headcount, conducted in two phases — house listing and the housing census, followed by population enumeration.

Source: PTI