Digital Census in India: Know the Process, Phases and Provision for self-enumeration. Watch Video

As India is moving towards the era of digitization, the country will also witness the upcoming census digitally i.e E-census. Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who recently visited Assam announced the big move for the upcoming census which was originally scheduled for the year 2021 but got postponed due to Covid-19 pandemic. Amit Shah said that 100 percent accurate calculation can be expected from the exercise of census conducted through digital medium. He further added that the Census of the country is one of the most important things and its accurate calculation is important for better planning of development plans of the country.

So let's decode what E-Census is and how ‘Matgadna’ will digitally take place in the country of population around 138 crores.  

What is the Digital Census?

The upcoming 16th census of India will take the palace digitally. Earlier the process of census included on-duty officers visiting every household and filling the forms. The forms include the number of family members, new borns, people who passed away and so on. However, with the E-Census the on-duty officers will not have to enter all the information on paper. Instead they will be carrying tablets or smartphones and will be adding the information digitally. 

The process will have a provision for self-enumeration, a mobile app for collection of data and a census portal for managing and monitoring various activities related to the census.

Process of Digital Census

• Once the census portal 2022 will be opened, one can log in using their mobile number and fill in their required details.

• Every individual will have to fill the form for population enumeration in the census portal.

• Codes will be displayed on the screen of the portal to fill various options.

• Once the self-enumeration is done, an identification number will be sent to the mobile.

• The ID number can be shared with the census workers when they come to take the information at your doorstep.  The number will automatically sync all the data which you have filled online.

Census 2022 in 2 Phase 

Let us tell you that earlier the The Government of India decided to conduct  the census in 2 Phase. The first Phase was scheduled from April to September 2020 which included house listing. The next phase was scheduled from February 9 to 28, 2021 which was set for the final calculations. However the advent of Covid-19 Pandemic in March 2020 brought everything to a halt and the census was postponed.  In July 2021, Minister of State for Home Nityanand Rai told the Rajya Sabha that the 2021 census and other related activities will be postponed until further orders due to the Corona pandemic.

First Census of India

The first census of India was done in 1881. However the census of Independent India was done from 1951 to 2011. In 2011 the Politicians Mulayam Singh Yadav, Lalu Prasad Yadav and Sharad Yadav demanded caste based census. The last census based on caste was conducted in 1931.

Announcement of Digital Census 2022

The announcement of the Digital Census was done on 1 February 2021 by  Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman during the Budget announcement. The budget of 3,726 crore  was also allocated for the process of census.