Why Census 2027 isn’t just another headcount—it could be a turning point for Indian democracy

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. On Wednesday, the same day that the National Statistics Office published its first advance estimate of GDP for 2025-26, the government announced that India’s long-overdue census will kick off on 1 April 2026. The coincidence is apt, even if unintended.

If economic growth is about prosperity, the census is about people. And since the aim of any democracy is to ensure that prosperity reaches all its people, we need to know more about the latter. It’s here that Census 2027 is expected to play a vital role.

For starters, though our population has overtaken China’s, according to Worldometer, a website that offers real-time statistics, our headcount is likely to conclusively show that India is now the world’s most populous country. But that’s not all. As the 16th of a decadal series that goes as far back as 1872, its report will serve as our biggest source of primary data at the grassroots level.

It will offer information on a host of parameters, such as housing, religion, language, literacy, business activity, migration, fertility and so on that can be sliced for analysis by village, town and ward. This will aid in planning, policy formulation and public administration so that welfare schemes reach their intended beneficiaries. Notably, this will be our first digital census, to be conducted by around 3 million enumerators.

Data will be collected using mobile apps that will be available for both Android and iOS phones. There will also be an option for self-enumeration within 15 days just before a 30-day span scheduled for house-listing operations. In another first, Census 2027 will digitally capture caste data.