The deadline to freeze the administrative boundaries of districts, tehsils and towns, among others, has been extended till December 31, ruling out the Census exercise before the 2024 General Elections.
The decennial Census exercise that was to be conducted in 2021 was postponed indefinitely, initially due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The latest order does not specify any reason.
The office of the Registrar General of India issued an order last week, stating the date of freezing of boundaries for the ensuing Census has been extended and will now be frozen with effect from January 1, 2024, a senior government official told The Hindu.
The order asked the Directorate of Census Operations to instruct State governments to make any administrative changes latest by December 31, and send a copy of the notification on jurisdictional changes to the Census office.
An official said that after the boundaries are frozen, it takes at least three months to train enumerators. The exercise cannot begin before April 2024, when the General Elections would be underway. Around 30 lakh government officials, which includes teachers and State government officials, are to be assigned as enumerators. “The same workforce will be deployed for General Election duty and as the Model Code of Conduct will be in place by then, the next Census will be held after the new government comes to power in 2024,” the official said.
India has conducted a Census every 10 years since 1881. The exercise was not halted even during World War II, but it had to be postponed in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The next Census will be the first digital Census, giving citizens the opportunity to self-enumerate.
The Census is now carried out in two phases — the Houselisting and Housing Census and Population Enumeration phase, which typically takes around 11 months. The National Population Register (NPR) is to be updated with the first phase of Census. Both phases were to be concluded by March 5, 2021.
On February 7, Minister of State for Home Nityanand Rai informed the Lok Sabha that the intent of the government for conducting Census 2021 was notified in the Gazette of India on March 28, 2019.
“Due to outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic, the Census 2021 and the related field activities have been postponed until further orders. Population Projections for India and States/Union Territories for 2011-2036, based on Census 2011 data, are available in the ‘Report of the Technical Group on Population Projections’ published by National Commission on Population, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare,” Mr. Rai said, when asked whether the government was facing any problem in implementing schemes due to the non-availability of actual population data in the country.
Editorial | Time to count: On government’s delay in conducting census
The report said that the population of India is expected to increase from 121.1 crore to 151.8 crore during 2011-2036 period — an increase of 25% in 25 years at the rate of 1.0% annually. As a consequence, the density of population will increase from 368 to 462 persons per square kilometre.
Earlier, the United Nations had said that India’s population was expected to reach 142 crore people by the end of April, surpassing that of China.
