New Delhi: India’s long-delayed population census, which will also include caste enumeration for the first time since 1931, is now expected to be completed by the end of 2026.
This will mark the country’s first fully digital census, utilising apps with dropdown menus and self-enumeration options, according to reports.
Originally scheduled for 2021, the Census has been postponed multiple times, with the government yet to release an official timeline.
However, the digital exercise is now projected to take about 11 months once it begins. All census-related questions will be made available through an online portal, allowing respondents to fill in their information directly.
The inclusion of caste data in the upcoming census is a significant shift in India’s data collection policy.
While data on Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes has been consistently published since 1951, information on other caste groups has not been gathered or released in any census post-Independence.
The last comprehensive caste data was collected in 1931, with an incomplete attempt made during the 1941 Census when the data was collected but never published due to administrative and wartime constraints.
Incorporating caste enumeration into the census could increase the number of questions asked during the house listing and housing census exercise, which previously had 31 items.
Advocates for this move, mainly from Other Backward Classes (OBCs) and marginalised communities, have long argued that without updated and accurate caste data, policies around reservation and resource allocation remain inadequately informed.
Estimates of the OBC population currently vary widely, with the Mandal Commission once pegging it at 52 per cent, while others have relied on fragmented data from sample surveys or political approximations.
The caste census has been a recurrent topic of debate in Parliament and state assemblies, often surfacing in the lead-up to general and state elections.
While it receives strong support from OBC and lower caste groups, it continues to face resistance from some upper-caste segments who question its necessity.
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