| Census of India | |
|---|---|
 Logo of census of India | |
| Genre | Statistics |
| Frequency | Decennial |
| Country | India |
| Inaugurated | March 1, 1951; 74 years ago (1951-03-01) |
| Most recent | March 1, 2011; 14 years ago (2011-03-01) |
| Previous event | 2011 census of India |
| Next event | 2027 census of India |
| Activity | Data-gathering, statistical analysis, and dissemination |
| Organised by | Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India |
| Website | www |
Thedecennialcensus of India has been conducted 15 times, as of 2011. While it has been undertaken every 10 years, beginning in 1872 under ViceroyLord Mayo, the first complete census was taken in 1872.[1] Post 1949, it has been conducted by theRegistrar General and Census Commissioner of India under theMinistry of Home Affairs,Government of India. All the censuses since 1951 were conducted under the 1948 Census of India Act, which predates the Constitution of India.[2] The 1948 Census of India Act does not bind the Union Government to conduct the census on a particular date or to release its data in a notified period. Thelast census was held in 2011, whilst the next was to be held in 2021 before it was postponed due to theCOVID-19 pandemic in India.[3] The next16th census will commence from 1st October 2026 for theHimalayan states and 1st March 2027 for rest of the Indian states.
The 1951census of India was the ninth in a series of censuses held inIndia every decade since1872.[5] It was also the first census after independence andPartition of India.[6] 1951 census was also the first census to be conducted under 1948 Census of India Act. The first census of the Indian Republic began on February 10, 1951.[7]
The population of India was counted as 361,088,090 (1000:946 male:female)[8] Total population increased by 42,427,510, 13.31% more than the 318,660,580 people counted during the 1941 census.[9] No census was done forJammu and Kashmir in 1951 and its figures were interpolated from 1941 and 1961 state census.[10]National Register of Citizens for Assam (NRC) was prepared soon after the census.[11][12] In 1951, at the time of the first population census, just 18% of Indians were literate while life expectancy was 32 years.[13] Based on 1951 census of displaced persons, 7,226,000 Muslims went to Pakistan (bothWest andEast Pakistan) from India, while 7,249,000 Hindus and Sikhs moved to India from Pakistan (bothWest andEast Pakistan).[14]The1961 census of India was the tenth in a series of censuses held inIndia every decade since1872.[15]
The population of India was counted as 438,936,918 people.[16]The1971 census of India was the 11th in a series of censuses held inIndia every decade since1872.[17]
The population of India was counted as 547,949,809 people.[18]The2001 census of India was the 14th in a series of censuses held inIndia every decade since1871.[23]
The population of India was counted as 1,028,737,436 consisting of 532,223,090 males and 496,514,346 females.[24] The total population increased by 182,310,397, 21.5% more than the 846,427,039 people counted during the1991 census.[24]The2011 census of India or the 15th Indian census was conducted in two phases, house listing and population enumeration. The House listing phase began on 1 April 2010 and involved the collection of information about all buildings. Information forNational Population Register (NPR) was also collected in the first phase, which will be used to issue a 12-digit unique identification number to all registered Indian residents byUnique Identification Authority of India. The second population enumeration phase was conducted between 9 and 28 February 2011. Census has been conducted in India since 1872 and 2011 marks the first time biometric information was collected. According to the provisional reports released on 31 March 2011, the Indian population increased to 1.21 billion with a decadal growth of 17.70%.[25] Adult literacy rate increased to 74.04% with a decadal growth of 9.21%. The motto of the census wasOur Census, Our Future.
Spread across 28states[a] and 8union territories, the census covered 640 districts, 5,924 sub-districts, 7,935 towns and more than 600,000 villages. A total of 2.7 million officials visited households in 7,935 towns and 600,000 villages, classifying the population according to gender, religion, education and occupation.[26] The cost of the exercise was approximately₹2,200 crore (US$260 million)[27] – this comes to less thanUS$0.50 per person, well below the estimated world average ofUS$4.60 per person.[26]
Information oncastes was included in the census following demands from several ruling coalition leaders includingLalu Prasad Yadav, andMulayam Singh Yadav supported by opposition partiesBharatiya Janata Party,Shiromani Akali Dal,Shiv Sena andAll India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam.[28] Information on caste was last collected during theBritish Raj in 1931. During the early census, people often exaggerated their caste status to garner social status and it is expected that people downgrade it now in the expectation of gaining government benefits.[29] Earlier, there was speculation that there would be a caste-based census conducted in 2011, the first time in 80 years (last was in 1931), to find the exact population of the "Other Backward Classes" (OBCs) in India.[30][31][32][33] This was later accepted and theSocio Economic and Caste Census 2011 was conducted whose first findings were revealed on 3 July 2015 by Union Finance MinisterArun Jaitley.[34] Mandal Commission report of 1980 quoted OBC population at 52%, though National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) survey of 2006 quoted OBC population at 41%.[35]
There is only one other instance of a caste count in post-independence India. It was conducted in Kerala in 1968 by theGovernment of Kerala underE. M. S. Namboodiripad to assess the social and economic backwardness of various lower castes. The census was termedSocio-Economic Survey of 1968 and the results were published in the Gazetteer of Kerala, 1971.[36]The2027 census of India, or the 16th Indian census, is to be conducted in two phases, a house listing phase and a population enumeration phase. Although initially the house listing was to begin in April 2020 along with the updating of theNational Population Register, and the population enumeration on 9 February 2021,[37] they have been continuously postponed. The national census is set to begin on March 1, 2027,[38] after multiple delays since its original 2021 schedule. This 16th census will includecaste enumeration for the first time since1931. Certain regions likeJammu and Kashmir,Ladakh,Himachal Pradesh andUttarakhand will commence the census earlier, starting from October 1, 2026.[38][39][40] This census is expected to serve as the basis for redistributing seats in theLok Sabha for the 2029 general election as part of thedelimitation exercise,[41] which have been frozen since 1976 due toThe Emergency imposed byIndira Gandhi. Gandhi's government brought in theForty-second Amendment which froze the total Parliamentary and Assembly seats in each state until the 2001 Census.[42]
In September 2019, Central Home MinisterAmit Shah had stated that the 2021 national census would be done fully digitally through a mobile phone application,[43] and will be carried out in 16 languages.[44] In February 2021, Central Finance MinisterNirmala Sitharaman allocated₹37.68 billion (US$450 million) for the census in the2021 Central budget of India.[45] It was delayed to 2022[46] and then further delayed to 2023[47] due to the COVID-19 pandemic in India. Following the postponement of the deadline of freezing administrative boundaries to 30 June 2023, and owing to the general elections in 2024, it was apparent in early 2023 that the census would not take place earlier than late 2024.[48] This was confirmed in July 2023, when theGovernment of India extended the deadline to freeze the administrative boundaries to 1 January 2024, ruling out the census exercise before the2024 Indian general election.[49][50] On 20 September 2023, Central Home MinisterAmit Shah informed during the discussion onWomen's Reservation Bill that census and the delimitation exercise will take place after the Lok Sabha elections in 2024.[51][52] On 30 December 2023, the deadline to freeze the administrative boundaries was further extended to 30 June 2024, thereby postponing the census to at least October 2024 as it would have required three months to identify and train enumerators.[53]
Media related toCensuses in India at Wikimedia Commons
