India’s Census exercise, aimed at supporting policy decisions and future planning, has begun with a self-enumeration facility for households. The online self-registration opened on July 17 as a preparatory step ahead of field enumeration.
The Census is conducted once every 10 years. After the 2011 Census, the next round was due in 2021 but was not held due to the Covid-19 outbreak. The current round is now being taken up.
As per the plan, the Census will be carried out in a digital mode. Door-to-door enumeration by enumerators is scheduled to begin on August 1, while self-enumeration has been enabled 15 days in advance through the portal: https://se.census.gov.in/.
Households can enter details about the house and available amenities using a single mobile number for the entire family. Either the head of the household or the spouse can complete the process; the head’s name cannot be changed, and the same mobile number should not be used by another family.
After selecting the State/UT and completing OTP verification, users must choose the district, pin the home location on the map and answer a questionnaire of 33 items—mostly by selecting options. Entries can be saved as draft, reviewed and corrected before final submission, after which an 11-character ID (starting with “H”) is generated and sent via SMS to be shared with the enumerator during the visit.
