Cabinet approves conduct of Census of India 2021 and updation of National Population Register

Census of India will cover the entire population in the country while NPR will also cover all the population except in the state of Assam.                                                               
The Indian Census is largest administrative and statistical exercise in the world. The next decennial Census is due in 2021 and would be conducted in two phases:

House listing and Housing Census - April to September, 2020 and Population Enumeration - 9th February to 28th February, 2021.

The National Population Register (NPR) will also be updated along with House listing and Housing Census except in Assam.

30 lakh field functionaries will complete this gigantic exercise of national importance, up from 28 lakh in 2011.

Use of mobile app for data collection and the Central portal for monitoring purpose will ensure early release of Census data with improved quality.

Data dissemination will be much better and in a user friendly way so that all the queries on required parameters for policy making will be made available on the click of a button.

Census-as-a-service (CaaS) will deliver on-demand data to ministries in a clean, machine-readable and actionable format.

Decennial Population Census is being conducted in India synchronously since 1872 without break. Census 2021 will be 16th Census in the country and 8th after independence.

Census is the biggest source of primary data at village, town and ward level providing micro level data on various parameters including Housing Condition; Amenities & Assets, Demography, Religion, SC & ST, Language, Literacy & Education, Economic Activity, Migration and Fertility.

The Census Act, 1948 and the Census Rules, 1990 provide the legal framework for conduct of Census.

The National Population Register (NPR) was prepared in 2010 under the provisions of the Citizenship Act, 1955 and Citizenship Rules, 2003, which was subsequently updated in 2015 by seeding it with Aadhaar.