Census cost likely to jump to Rs 82 per head as India gears up for first fully digital headcount

Counting people is an expensive exercise

India’s upcoming census will be its costliest ever on a per-capita basis. The 2026–27 population count is set to cost Rs 82 per person, more than the Rs 18 spent in 2011 and significantly higher than the Rs 64 budgeted for the postponed 2021 exercise.

The increase reflects both inflation and the expanded scope of what will be India’s first fully digital census, including caste enumeration.

The Union Cabinet has approved the Census of India 2027 at a total cost of Rs 11,718.24 crore. The exercise will be conducted in two phases: house listing and housing census in 2026, followed by population enumeration in early 2027, with adjusted reference dates for snow-bound and remote regions.

At Rs 82 per head, the new census will be nearly five times as expensive as the 2011 exercise and about 28 percent costlier than the shelved 2021 census. The escalation reflects not just higher prices, but also the government’s decision to conduct caste enumeration—the first such effort in nearly a century—and to shift the entire operation to mobile-based data collection with real-time monitoring systems.

If the Socio-Economic and Caste Census (SECC) conducted alongside the 2011 census is included, the effective per-capita cost of the 2011 exercise rises to Rs 58.7, narrowing the gap. Even then, the upcoming census remains about 40 percent more expensive per person.

The 2021 census, initially approved at Rs 8,754.23 crore, had already marked a significant jump due to early digitisation plans. However, a Moneycontrol analysis suggests the latest cost increase broadly tracks inflation. Prices have risen about 29 percent since December 2019, when the Cabinet approved the 2021 census, while the overall census cost has risen by roughly 28 percent. Notably, caste data collection was not part of the 2021 plan.

The expanded census may also reveal that India’s population is larger than the current projections of around 1.43 billion, bringing the cost, per capita, down further. Historically, official projections have consistently undershot the final count. In 1981, projections were lower by 1.7 percent; in 1991 and 2001, by 1.1–1.6 percent. By 2011, India’s population stood at 121.1 crore, about 1.6 percent higher than projected.

Fertility assumptions have also tended to be optimistic. Government projections had placed the total fertility rate (TFR) at 2.13 during 2016–2020, easing to 1.94 thereafter. Actual fertility averaged 2.16 during 2016–2020 and only fell below projections in 2023, when TFR declined to 1.9.

Beyond digitisation, the inclusion of caste enumeration adds a significant layer of complexity, staffing needs and verification challenges—factors that partly explain the higher per-capita cost.