Lucknow: With the self-enumeration facility for Census 2027 taking off in Uttar Pradesh from Nov 16, the state is ready to launch its population enumeration exercise, including caste enumeration, from Dec 1, 2026, to Jan 4, 2027.All the people, including foreigners, who will remain present on the soil of Uttar Pradesh will be counted during the 35-day-long exercise.The enumeration drive will cover all 75 districts, 350 tehsils, 783 statutory towns and 1,04,004 villages across the state. A total of 1,195 administrative charges have been identified for conducting the census.Director of census operations and chief principal census officer, Uttar Pradesh, Sheetal Verma, said the self-enumeration for Census 2027 will begin on Nov 16, allowing households to submit their details online before census enumerators visit their homes.She said that the self-enumeration facility would remain available till Nov 30 through the official portal ‘se.census.gov.in’.She appealed to people to participate and provide accurate information.For the first time, households will have the option of filing details online before an enumerator visits them.After submitting the questionnaire, a unique self-enumeration ID (SE ID) will be generated which will have to be shared with the enumerator during the visit to enable retrieval of their information through the mobile application.“Self-enumeration is optional and enumerators will visit every household. Those who do not use the online facility will have their details collected directly by enumerators,” she said.The 40-question questionnaire will cover details such as name, relationship with the head of the household, sex, age, marital status, nationality, religion, caste, disability, languages, education, occupation, economic activity and migration.The reference date for Census 2027 is midnight of Jan 4-5, 2027. Population enumeration will be conducted from Dec 1, 2026, to Jan 4, 2027, and enumeration of homeless population will be conducted on the night of Jan 4.The exercise will be followed by a revisional round from Jan 5 to 9 and the final report will be published in April.Nearly 7 lakh personnel, including enumerators, supervisors, trainers, volunteers, technical assistants and officers, have been engaged in preparations for Census 2027 across Uttar Pradesh, with five lakh enumerators and supervisors already trained for the exercise.“Around 5.6 lakh enumerators and supervisors are being arranged for population enumeration,” Verma said.According to the census directorate, 3,90,717 houselisting blocks (HLBs) were created during the first phase, conducted from May 22 to June 20, 2026. For the second phase, approximately 4.8 lakh enumeration blocks have been identified for population enumeration.Each enumerator will generally be assigned around 800-850 people or 180-200 census houses over 35 days. Verma clarified that not every enumeration block would have 800 residents and supervisors would assist enumerators wherever required.District magistrates will function as principal census officers at the district level, while officials at different administrative levels will coordinate training, supervision, monitoring and timely completion of the exercise.Responding to concerns over the workload involving a 40-question schedule, Verma said not every question applied to every individual. Questions concerning occupation, fertility and migration would not apply to many children, reducing the time required for enumeration.She said the workload had been calculated after testing the enumeration process in other states.Verma said instructions had been issued against assigning census duties to personnel on maternity leave, people with disabilities, AIDS or heart ailments, and employees retiring within three months. District medical boards would examine other compassionate and medical cases, and exemptions had already been granted in several instances.Special arrangements have been made for slums, institutional households and houseless populations. Slum settlements will be designated as special enumeration blocks to ensure that residents, including those without identity documents, are covered.Enumerators visiting potentially unsafe locations at night would be accompanied by administrative personnel, with support from the state home department. Verma said women enumerators would not be expected to visit such locations alone.Verma said the Union finance ministry had given in-principle approval to consider ex gratia assistance in unfortunate incidents involving census personnel. However, a formal notification is still awaited.She said that senior officers would intervene wherever households refused to cooperate with enumerators, as participation in the census was a legal obligation under the Census Act, 1948.
