India launched the first phase of its long-delayed national census on April 1, 2026, setting in motion what is being described as the world’s largest population count, an exercise that carries significant weight for global economic planning, development policy and investment strategy given the country’s scale and rapid growth trajectory.
The census, delayed by five years, will deploy about 3.3 million officials to collect information on more than a billion people, covering everything from household composition and access to basic amenities to marital status and mobile phone ownership. Originally scheduled for 2021, it was delayed by the Covid-19 pandemic and national elections.
India’s Registrar General and Census Commissioner, Mritunjay Kumar Narayan, confirmed that the exercise will be the country’s 16th census overall and its eighth since independence, and that it will be conducted entirely through digital means for the first time, with enumerators collecting and submitting data through mobile applications.
In another first, citizens will be able to self-enumerate through a secure online portal available in 16 languages, generating a unique Self-Enumeration Identity (ID) that enumerators will verify during door-to-door visits.
The exercise is structured in two phases. The first phase, running from April to September 2026, will focus on house listing and housing conditions, collecting data on living arrangements, access to amenities and household assets. The second phase, scheduled for February 2027, will capture population enumeration data including demographic, socioeconomic, educational, migration and fertility information.
Caste enumeration will take place in the second phase, marking the first time national caste data has been collected since 1931. That element has generated significant political discussion because caste data in India are deeply tied to public policy, affirmative action, welfare distribution and electoral representation.
The government has approved a budget of 11,718.24 crore Indian rupees for the full exercise. It will cover 36 states and union territories, more than 7,000 sub-districts, 5,128 statutory towns and approximately 640,000 villages.
The significance of the count extends well beyond domestic administration. Economists and development experts note that with the last census conducted in 2011, India has been operating national social programmes, infrastructure investment plans and poverty assessments on data that no longer reflects the country’s current demographic and economic reality. Ashwini Deshpande, an economist at Ashoka University, said that since the census serves as the sampling frame for all large-scale surveys, an outdated census introduces systematic errors into data that policymakers, researchers and planners depend on, which is not a minor technical inconvenience.
Updated figures will also carry weight for international institutions and investors assessing India’s consumer market depth, labour force structure, urbanisation pace and social infrastructure needs across one of the world’s fastest-growing major economies.
