The government on Monday issued a notification for conducting India's 16th census, including caste enumeration, in 2027. This exercise comes 16 years after the last such undertaking in 2011.

The census will be carried out with a reference date of October 1, 2026, in snow-bound areas like Ladakh, and March 1, 2027, in the rest of the country, the notification stated. "The reference date for the said census shall be 00:00 hours of the 1st day of March, 2027, except for the Union Territory of Ladakh and snow-bound non-synchronous areas of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir and the States of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand," it specified. For Ladakh and snow-bound non-synchronous areas of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir and the states of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, the reference date will be 00:00 hours of the 1st day of October, 2026.

This massive exercise, aimed at providing population-related data from across the country, will be conducted by approximately 34 lakh enumerators and supervisors and around 1.3 lakh census functionaries, all equipped with digital devices. A government statement confirmed that caste enumeration will also be part of this census. The provision of self-enumeration will also be made available to the public.