On Thursday, Amit Shah, India’s Union Home Minister, presented the mascots “Pragati” and “Vikas” and soft-launched four digital platforms in New Delhi in preparation for the upcoming Census-2027. This would be the first completely digital population count in India.
With over 30 lakh enumerators and officials deployed worldwide, Census-2027 will be performed in two phases and is billed as the world’s largest census effort. Households can now submit details online in 16 languages before door-to-door verification thanks to a new Self-Enumeration (SE) site, a secure web-based platform. This is a first for citizens.
The digital tools, developed by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), include:
- Houselisting Block Creator (HLBC) for satellite-based digital mapping
- HLO Mobile App for secure field data collection
- Self-Enumeration Portal for online citizen participation
- Census Management and Monitoring System (CMMS) for real-time tracking
- Phase 1 — Houselisting and Housing Census — will run from April to September 2026, while Phase 2 — Population Enumeration — will be conducted in February 2027. Caste-related data will also be collected in the second phase.
The gender-neutral mascots “Pragati” and “Vikas” represent the importance of both sexes working together to make India a developed nation by the year 2047.
Digital enumeration, real-time monitoring, and citizen-led data input are some of the impressive features of Census-2027 that demonstrate the government’s commitment to technology-driven inclusive planning.
