Aizawl: Refugees taking shelter in Mizoram will be included in the population enumeration exercise under Phase 2 of Census 2027, officials said at a state-level conference in Aizawl on Saturday.The one-day conference was held for census officials under the chairmanship of chief secretary Khilli Ram Meena.Officials said the second phase of the census would include a caste census for the first time. The enumeration will cover 16 Scheduled Castes living in Mizoram.“The refugees taking shelter in the state will also be included in the census by collecting their biographic data, but those refugees whose data are collected during the census will not be regarded as Indian citizens,” an official told TOI.People living in Mizoram, including refugees from Myanmar and Bangladesh, as well as internally displaced people of Manipur, will be covered during the population enumeration, the conference was informed.Anyone who does not want to share his or her Aadhaar card number will not be forced to do so, the official said. Those whose names were deleted from electoral rolls during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) will also be counted and recorded in the census, he added.The chief secretary said the data collected during the second phase would be important for framing govt policies, including those linked to Viksit Bharat@2047. He stressed the need for a factual and comprehensive enumeration.“As this phase will be actual enumeration of the population of the state, which is the main objective of the census, the officials involving in the process will have to work harder,” Meena said.Expressing the state govt’s willingness to assist district- and field-level officers engaged in the task, he expressed confidence that Mizoram would complete the exercise ahead of other states, as it did during Phase 1.Director of census operations Vinod P Kavle thanked the officials attending the conference, while deputy director of census operations Jamil R Swer explained the Phase 2 process, including the training programme. Principal secretary of the general administration department Sudhir Kumar also spoke at the conference.Training for master trainers, field trainers, enumerators and supervisors is scheduled to be completed by Nov this year. Each enumerator will be assigned data collection for around 800 people. The Centre has allocated Rs 19.19 crore for expenses to be incurred during the Census 2027 Phase-2.The conference was attended by senior officials from the land revenue and settlement department, the general administration department, the directorate of information and public relations, and district-level census authorities.
