Now Reading: Census 2027 to ask 40 questions, including caste and Covid jab location
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Census 2027 to ask 40 questions, including caste and Covid jab location
Census 2027 to ask 40 questions, including caste and Covid jab location
The Centre has notified 40 questions for the population enumeration phase of Census 2027, beginning September 1 in snow-bound areas of Ladakh, Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand. For the first…
The Story in Brief
The Centre has notified 40 questions for the population enumeration phase of Census 2027, beginning September 1 in snow-bound areas of Ladakh, Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand. For the first time since Independence, the Census will collect caste data for all communities, recorded as stated by respondents rather than from a pre-prepared list.
Other new questions include the place of Covid-19 vaccination, number of bank accounts, digital literacy status, Aadhaar, voter ID, passport and driving licence. The questionnaire also covers employment, migration, fertility and disability. Census 2027 will be India's first fully digital exercise, with a self-enumeration option from August 17 to 31. The budget approved for the decadal exercise, postponed from 2021, is Rs 11,718 crore.
The Indian Opinion
Caste data collection in Census 2027 is being celebrated as a step toward evidence-based policy, but the 2011 Socio-Economic and Caste Census threw up over 46 lakh caste names against just 4,147 official entries. Unless the government also releases a credible classification framework alongside the raw data, the exercise risks creating a statistical muddle that can be cherry-picked by every political party. The real test will be how the Registrar General classifies and publishes the 2027 responses, and whether Parliament debates the methodology before enumeration begins.
Sources (4): timesofindia.indiatimes.com, rediff.com, thefederal.com, english.mathrubhumi.com
This story was synthesised by AI from the 4 sources linked above.
Updated: this story now draws on 4 sources.
