{"id":56043,"date":"2026-04-01T02:55:43","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T02:55:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/?p=56043"},"modified":"2026-04-01T02:55:52","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T02:55:52","slug":"billion-plus-people-three-million-officials-33-questions-india-begins-huge-census","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/?p=56043","title":{"rendered":"Billion-plus people, three million officials, 33 questions – India begins huge census"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

BBC: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Does your house have a concrete roof or a thatched one?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is your main cereal? Do you have internet access – or just a basic mobile phone? And how many married couples live under your roof?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These are among the 33 questions that more than a billion Indians will be asked as the country launches the world’s largest census on Wednesday, marking the first population count in more than 15 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The two-phase exercise, billed as the world’s most ambitious of its kind, will see more than three million officials spend a year counting every person in India.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

India’s 16th census – the eighth since independence in 1947 – will also include caste data and is seen as crucial for policy, welfare delivery and political representation in the world’s most populous country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With more than 1.4 billion people, India overtook China in 2023, according to the United Nations Population Fund.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet, falling fertility and a median age of 28 mean it remains one of the world’s youngest countries, with nearly 70% of its population of working age.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The last census was held in 2011, with the 2021 round delayed<\/a> by the pandemic and later pushed back further due to administrative and electoral scheduling – the first time the decennial exercise missed its schedule.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The exercise will span 36 states and federally-administered territories, more than 7,000 sub-districts, over 9,700 towns and nearly 640,000 villages, with fieldwork carried out by enumerators and supervisors – typically schoolteachers, government staff and local officials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the first time, the census will be conducted digitally, with enumerators using mobile apps to collect and upload data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Authorities have introduced self-enumeration, letting residents submit details online via a 16-language portal that generates a unique ID for verification by census workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There will be two phases of \u2060physical door-to-door surveys.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first phase, known as the House Listing and Housing Census, will gather information on housing conditions, amenities and household assets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second phase – population enumeration – is scheduled for February 2027 and will collect detailed data on demographics, education, migration and fertility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It will also include caste enumeration, a politically sensitive issue that has long been debated<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BBC: Does your house have a concrete roof or a thatched one? What is your main cereal? Do you have internet access – or just a basic mobile phone? And how many married couples live under your roof? These are among the 33 questions that more than a billion Indians will be asked as the country launches the world’s largest census on Wednesday, marking the first population count in more than 15 years. The two-phase exercise, billed as the world’s most ambitious of its kind, will see more than three million officials spend a year counting every person in India…. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":56044,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-in-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=56043"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56043\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56045,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56043\/revisions\/56045"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/56044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=56043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=56043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=56043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}