The rehearsal for the second phase of Census, which started in 16 States and Union Territories on July 6, has an “open column” for respondents to record their castes, several officials involved in the exercise told The Hindu. File
| Photo Credit: Sushil Kumar Verma
The rehearsal for the second phase of Census, which started in 16 States and Union Territories on Monday (July 6, 2026), has an “open column” for respondents to record their castes, several officials involved in the exercise told The Hindu.
Though this gives an indication of how caste is likely to be enumerated in the country as part of the Population Census 2027, officials said that this was just a “pre-test” and the final methodology will be prepared based on the feedback received during the exercise, which concludes on July 20.
The castes of all residents will be recorded in the second phase of the Census, named Population Enumeration (PE). The 2027 Census is the first digital Census and the first to enumerate caste in independent India. Until now, only the Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) were being enumerated during the Census exercise.
The PE phase will be conducted in February 2027 across the country but in Ladakh and snowbound areas of Jammu and Kashmir, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh, it will be concluded by September 30. The final questionnaire will be known by September.
The pre-test exercise also allowed self-enumeration, and the portal was accessible from July 1 to 5 only in the specific area where the rehearsal is being conducted.
In Faridabad, Haryana, the exercise is being conducted in 17 enumeration blocks. Each block typically has around 150 to 180 residential units with a population of around 650 to 800 people.
“To evaluate field procedures, digital applications, and operational arrangements ahead of the nationwide population enumeration, a pre-test will be conducted in Ward No. 24 — comprising 17 enumeration blocks — from July 1 to July 20, 2026,” the office of the Deputy Commissioner, Faridabad said.
The PE phase in Census 2011 had 29 questions covering demographic, cultural and economic parameters, as well as literacy, migration, marital status, travel to place of work, and fertility.
At present, the first phase of Census – the Housing and House Listing Operations (HLO) — is yet to be completed in eight States — Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, Nagaland, Tamil Nadu, Tripura, West Bengal, Assam and Manipur.
Another official involved in Census operations added, “While SC and ST communities will be enumerated as they have always been, with codes for communities in the SC and ST lists, other people will have an open column to fill in their caste and enumerators will enter whatever a resident says their caste is.”
This comes even as scholars and experts have been speculating how the government will decide to enumerate castes in India ever since the Union Cabinet approved it in 2025. The discourse on the methodology of caste enumeration has largely swung between either leaving an open column for caste – as the 2011 Socio-Economic Caste Census (SECC) did – or preparing a list of castes for people to pick from — as the Bihar government did in its 2022-23 Caste-Based Survey.
Interestingly, the open column methodology had resulted in the 2011 SECC returning over 46 lakh different “caste names”, largely owing to the difference in what people understand by caste. Significantly, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government has consistently maintained over the last decade that the 2011 SECC’s caste data were unreliable because of “errors” in data collection. The total number of castes during the 1931 Census was 4,147.
Published – July 06, 2026 11:05 pm IST
