Recent Updates on Census 2021

January 3, 2022

Central Government has postponed the first phase of the census and collection of details for updating the National Population Register (NPR) at least till September, 2022.

Highlights

  • Earlier in December 2021, freezing of boundaries of districts, sub-districts, talukas, tehsils, police stations etc. has been postponed till June 2022.
  • Freezing of boundary limits of administrative units is a pre-requisite to conduct the census. It is done at least three months prior.
  • Finalisation of administrative units call for covering all jurisdictional changes in an administrative area between two consecutive censuses.
  • As per provisional data compiled by the Registrar General of India (RGI) till June 2021, number of districts has increased from 640 in 2011 to 736.
  • The sub-districts have increased from 5,925 in 2011 to 6,754 in 2021, census towns from 3,892 to 5,050 and statutory towns from 4,041 to 4,657.
  • However, villages have decreased from 6,40,934 to 6,39,083, for the same period.

First phase of Census 2021

First phase of Census 2021, involving House listing, Housing Census and updating the NPR, was scheduled to be held from April-September, 2020. However, it was postponed indefinitely amid COVID-19 pandemic.

Second Phase

The second and main phase of the census, involving population enumeration, was scheduled to be concluded by March 5, 2021. But it could not happen since States were banned to create new administrative units from January 1, 2020 to March 31, 2021.

National Population Register (NPR)

NPR is a list of all the people residing in India. It includes both citizens and non-citizens. NPR was first compiled in 2010. It was updated in 2015. It has already compiled a database of 119 crore residents. NPR was to be updated along with the first phase of 2020 census.

Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India

It was founded in 1961 by Ministry of Home Affairs, to arrange, conduct and analyse the results of demographic surveys of India including Linguistic Survey and Census of India. The position of Registrar is held by a civil servant, who holds the rank of Joint Secretary.

The Indian Census

Census in India is the largest single source of several statistical information on different characteristics of citizens in India. First synchronous census was conducted in 1881.

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