India is poised to undertake a monumental year-long census, deploying over three million officials to count every individual in the world’s most populous nation.
This colossal undertaking, a decennial survey originally slated for 2021, was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The population count is set to commence on 1 April, with a brief period allocated for citizens who wish to register themselves online, the government confirmed.
Subsequently, the process will involve two distinct phases of physical door-to-door surveys.
The first phase will focus on cataloguing houses and their conditions, while the second will gather data on inhabitants, including their economic and social parameters, according to Census Commissioner Mritunjay Kumar Narayan.
With a population now exceeding 1.4 billion, India officially surpassed China in 2023, as reported by the United Nations Population Fund.
Despite its vast numbers, analysts and economists largely view India’s population size without alarm.
The government has consistently championed its predominantly young demographic as a significant opportunity to cultivate a large pool of skilled workers, particularly as many major global economies contend with declining and ageing workforces.
The census will also collect details of castes, Narayan said. The rigid social stratification system dates back thousands of years and pervades Indian life and politics.
There are scores of caste-based political parties, and many state institutions must offer affirmative action quotas to the so-called lower castes for employment and college places.
Supporters have stressed the need for data on those deserving government assistance, while critics say caste has no place in a country with ambitions of becoming a major world power.
India recorded its census in 2011 for the first time in 80 years, but the data was not fully publicised amid concerns about its accuracy.
The census is expected to conclude next March. Narayan said several data sets from the census, being recorded digitally for the first time, would be released soon after.
Despite India being the world’s most populous nation with 1.46 billion people, its total fertility rate has fallen to below two children per woman, according to the UN Population Fund’s 2025 report.
Mohan Bhagwat, the chief of the RSS – the ideological parent of Prime Minister Narendra Modi‘s Bharatiya Janata Party – previously stated that the population must remain “controlled, yet sufficient”.
