The Registrar General of India has ordered census officials not to release any provisional population figures or other data collected during the ongoing census until further notice. In a July 1 communique to all Directorates of Census Operations, Registrar General and Census Commissioner Mritunjay Kumar Narayan said all information gathered during the exercise is confidential and protected under the Census Act, 1948, and must not be shared with the press or any authority, official or non-official, until the Office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India (ORGI) issues further instructions.
Narayan warned that all census staff — from Principal Census Officers to enumerators and DCO personnel — must be sensitised to the confidentiality requirements. “Any breach of instructions by any official entrusted and concerned with Census Operations will be viewed seriously and erring officials will be liable for appropriate disciplinary action under the Census Act, 1948 and other appropriate Act and Rules,” the communique said.
The RGI reiterated that the census is primarily a fully digital exercise, with enumerators expected to collect data on mobile devices using purpose-built applications. However, in exceptional circumstances such as technical failures or connectivity problems, data may be recorded on paper schedules as provided in instruction manuals. The directive instructs Charge Officers to ensure that data entry on the Census portal for any Houselisting Blocks (HLBs) collected on paper is completed within seven days after the end of the Houselisting Operations (HLO) period. Physical records must be packed according to norms and dispatched to the Directorate of Census Operations through the Postal Department.
This census, the eighth since India’s independence, is being conducted in two phases. The first phase — house listing and housing census — began with field visits on April 16, 2026, in several states and union territories and will continue until September 30, 2026. The second phase, population enumeration, is scheduled to begin in February 2027 for most of the country, excluding snowbound regions. The caste enumeration for Census 2027 will be carried out during that second phase starting February 2027 nationwide, except in snowbound regions, non‑synchronous areas of the UT of Jammu and Kashmir, and the states of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, where it will take place in September 2026.
The ORGI stressed adherence to packing and record‑keeping norms throughout the operation. The census remains the largest source of micro‑level data at village, town and ward levels, covering housing, amenities, demography, religion, SC/ST status, language, education, economic activity, migration and fertility. PTI
Original Source: https://assamtribune.com/national/no-provisional-census-data-to-be-released-without-approval-registrar-general-1613757
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Publish Date: 2026-07-01 18:34:00
