A fresh census is likely to be delayed as finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman allocated a meagre ₹574.80 crore for the exercise in the Union budget on Saturday compared with ₹3,768 crore set aside in 2021-22.

The census, usually carried out every 10 years, was last conducted in 2011. A new one became due in 2021 but was postponed indefinitely because of the pandemic.

Government sources said the entire census and National Population Register (NPR) exercise was likely to cost the government over ₹12,000 crore.

On December 24, 2019, the Union cabinet had approved a proposal to conduct an all-India 2021 census atba cost of ₹8,754.23 crore and update the NPR by spending ₹3,941.35 crore.

The house-listing phase of the census and the exercise to update the NPR were scheduled to be carried out across the country from April 1 to September 30, 2020, but
were postponed due to the Covid-19 outbreak.

In October last year, home ministry sources had said the census would start early in 2025, with the population data to be declared by 2026.

Opposition leaders have long slammed the Narendra Modi government for delaying the decadal exercise, alleging this was the first time since Independence that the government had failed to conduct a census on time.

Sources said the census, whenever it happens, would be the first digital survey
allowing the citizens to self-enumerate.

The NPR has been made compulsory for citizens who want to exercise the right to fill up the census form on their own rather than through government enumerators. For this, the census authority has designed a self-enumeration portal, which is yet to
be launched.

During self-enumeration, Aadhaar or mobile numbers will be mandatorily collected.

The census can only begin a few months after the registrar-general of India receives certain data from the states.

Before every census, the states are required to inform the registrar-general about the changes made since the last census to the number of notified districts, villages, towns and other administrative units such as tehsils, talukas and police stations.

The boundaries of the administrative units are frozen three months before the start of the census. During this period, the data is compiled and shared with the registrar-general, which begins its preparatory work for the census.

The office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner has prepared 31 questions to be asked during the census. These include whether a family has a landline telephone, Internet connection, a (basic) mobile or smartphone, a bicycle, scooter, motorcycle, car, jeep or van.

Households will also be asked about the cereals they eat, their main source of drinking water and lighting, access to toilets, waste water outlets, and the fuel used for cooking, among others.