World Book Fair Spreads Awareness on National Census
New Delhi: The World Book Fair is also playing an important role in spreading awareness about the national census, with the Census Department under the Union Ministry of Home Affairs setting up a dedicated stall at the venue. The stall provides visitors with detailed information about the history of the Indian Census as well as the upcoming census exercise.
Several lesser-known facts related to the census are being shared with the public through this initiative. With the objective of increasing public awareness, especially among students, the Census Department has designed the stall to be both informative and engaging. On Friday, a large number of schoolchildren visited the stall, keen to learn more and seek answers to their questions related to the census process.
The Central Government has already issued a notification for the first phase of Census of India 2027. As per the announcement, house-listing operations will be carried out between April 1 and September 30, covering all states and Union Territories over a period of 30 days.
The 2027 census will mark a historic milestone as India’s first fully digital census, with data collection carried out through a mobile application and a self-enumeration portal. Significantly, it will also include the first nationwide caste census since 1931, covering not only Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, but all communities. This historic feature has made the Census Department’s stall a major point of attraction for visitors at the fair.
Earlier, the census was scheduled for 2021, but it had to be postponed due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. For the first time since Independence, caste enumeration of all communities will be conducted as part of the main census exercise. In previous censuses, caste data—except for SCs and STs—was excluded. While some states conducted separate caste surveys with varying objectives and levels of transparency, these efforts raised concerns over politicisation. To ensure social harmony and uniformity, the government has decided to include caste enumeration within the main census itself, rather than conducting it as a separate survey.