NEW DELHI: Moving towards conducting the National Census 2027, the NDA government on Friday approved a proposal at its Union Cabinet meeting, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, to carry out the Census of India 2027 at a cost of ₹11,718 crore.

Billed as the world’s largest statistical exercise, the Census of India will be conducted in two phases.

Union Minister for Information & Broadcasting Ashwini Vaishnaw, sharing details of the Cabinet decision, said that the first phase of Census 2027 will involve the House Listing and Housing Census, to be carried out between April and September 2026. The second phase will cover Population Enumeration in February 2027.

Notably, the Population Census for the Union Territory of Ladakh and the snow-bound, non-synchronous areas of the Union Territory of Jammu & Kashmir, as well as the states of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, will be conducted in September 2026.

The minister added that nearly 30 lakh field functionaries will be engaged in the Census, generating more than 1.5 crore human-day employment. Census 2027 will also be India’s first-ever digital census.