New Delhi: The government has announced that the Census 2027 process will take place in two stages. The first stage is the Houselisting and Housing Census, a preparatory exercise to gather basic data on housing conditions and household characteristics. The second stage will be population enumeration, which will collect more in-depth data on all individuals in a household.
In a reply to the upper house of the Parliament, Nityanand Rai, Minister of State, Ministry of Home Affairs, stated that the questions for Phase I have already been issued. In Phase I, data pertaining to housing status, household characteristics, name of head of household, sex of head of household, amenities available, and assets owned by household are to be collected. The census will now record three options for the sex of the head of household: male, female, and transgender.
The questions for Phase II, which pertains to data collection for all individuals in a household, will be announced later. The enumerators will visit all households in the entire enumeration area to ensure that no household is left out. The option of using a self-enumeration facility is also provided to the householders, but data collected in this way will be verified by the enumerators before submission.
To assist householders in filling out the forms in an appropriate way, there are FAQs, tool tips, and validation provided in the self-enumeration portal. The administration is also providing extensive training to all functionaries in the field. The mobile data collection app has in-built validation rules to maintain consistency and accuracy in data collected by enumerators. The supervisors are also monitoring and reviewing data collected by enumerators using the app.
Regarding data security and privacy of respondents, the minister stated that there are adequate data security measures in place. The data-security measures are for mobile data collection, data transmission, and server storage of all data collected in the census.