If citizens want to exercise the right to fill the Census form on their own rather than through government enumerators, they will have to first update their National Population Register (NPR) details online. The NPR, first put together in 2010 and updated in 2015, already has the details of 119 crore people.
Census 2021, which has been postponed indefinitely, will be the first digital Census giving citizens an opportunity to “self-enumerate” as and when it is conducted. The government has not announced when the next Census will be held, with a January 2, 2023 notification ruling out the exercise at least till September.
The Census is conducted in two phases. The first phase — the Houselisting Operations (HLO) and Housing Census — is to be conducted with simultaneous updating of NPR. Population enumeration is the second and the main phase, which collects details on key social and economic parameters.
