No Census, NPR In 2025 Too? Centre's Rs 574 Cr Allocation In Budget For Decadal Exercise Hints Further Delay

The house listing phase of the census and the exercise to update the NPR were planned to be carried out nationwide from April 1 to September 30, 2020, but were postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Union Budget 2025 presented on Saturday allocated Rs 574.80 crore for the census.

Source : Freepik

The Union Budget 2025 presented on Saturday allocated Rs 574.80 crore for the census, hinting that it is highly unlikely that the decadal exercise will be carried out in 2025. 

The interim Budget in 2024 had allocated Rs 1,277.80 crore for the census, which was a significant reduction from 2021-22 when the government set aside Rs 3,768 crore. In Decemer 2019, a meeting of the Union Cabinet had approved the proposal for conducting census of India 2021 at a cost of Rs 8,754.23 crore and updating the National Population Register (NPR) at Rs 3,941.35 crore.

The house listing phase of the census and the exercise to update the National Population Register were planned to be carried out nationwide from April 1 to September 30, 2020, but were postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, the census operation has remained on hold, with the government yet to announce the new schedule.

The Union Budget 2025-26, presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman today allocated Rs 574.80 crore for Census, Surveys and Statistics/Registrar General of India (RGI), which is a significant reduction from the Budget 2021-22. It is an indication that the decadal exercise may not be carried out even after this significant delay.

In 2024-25, the allocation under the head was Rs 572 crore. Officials say the entire census and NPR exercise is expected to cost the government over Rs 12,000 crore.

Whenever the exercise is carried out in future, it will be the first digital census, which will provide the citizens an opportunity to self-enumerate.

The NPR has been made it mandatory for citizens who wish to fill the census form on their own instead of getting it done through government enumerators. For this, the census authority has developed a self-enumeration portal, which is yet to be launched. Notably, Aadhaar or mobile number will be mandatorily collected during self-enumeration.

The Office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner had prepared nearly three dozen questions which the citizens will be asked. Those questions might revolve around whether a family has telephone, mobile, smartphone, internet connection, bicycle, motorcycle or scooter or moped, and whether they own a car, van or a jeep.

They will also be asked about the cereal they consume in the household, availability of radio, transistor and television, main source of lighting and drinking water, access to latrine and type of latrine, availability of kitchen and LPG/PNG connection, waste water outlet, availability of bathing facility, and main fuel used for cooking.

Some other questions that citizens will be asked include the predominant material of floor, wall and roof of the census house and its condition, total number of persons normally residing in the household, gender of the head of the household, whether the head of the household is Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe, number of rooms in possession of the household, and the number of married couple or couples residing in the household.

(With inputs from news agency PTI)