Demography panel to study population changes post 2011 Census, prepares detailed questionnaire for States

Account subscription benefits alongside Premium Stories, Editorials, Opinions and more. Unlock these with Subscription

The View From India Looking at World Affairs from the Indian perspective.

First Day First Show News and reviews from the world of cinema and streaming.

Today's Cache Your download of the top 5 technology stories of the day.

Data Point Decoding the headlines with facts, figures, and numbers

Health Matters Ramya Kannan writes to you on getting to good health, and staying there

The Hindu On Books Books of the week, reviews, excerpts, new titles and features.

The High-Level Committee on Demographic Changes (HLCDC) led by a retired Supreme Court judge, is all set to send questionnaires to Chief Secretaries of all States seeking details of population changes and increase in settlements since the last Census was conducted in 2011, a government source told The Hindu.

“We will compare the 2011 Census data with the present scenario to understand the scale of change and will also visit those areas. The questions pertain to changes post 2011 Census,” said the source.

The final data for the next Census after 2011, the Population Census 2027, which is being done after a gap of 16 years, are yet to be known.

The first phase of Population Census 2027 — the House Listing and Housing Operations (HLO) — is presently being conducted in phases in several parts of the country, and the final phase, the Population Enumeration, will be completed on March 1, 2027. The HLO can give a fair idea of the settlements and tentative population in enumeration blocks and is set to conclude on September 30 this year.

The panel will also issue an e-mail address to which people can send suggestions or feedback regarding the exercise.

The panel will also ask the Election Commission of India (ECI) to furnish the names of those excluded from voter rolls during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise and also the reasons behind the exclusions. The details of exclusions would help the panel estimate the number of “illegal migrants” in the country, the source said.

The SIR has been completed in 13 States and Union Territories (UT) so far. A document-based process of revising voter lists, the SIR has been criticised for placing the burden of proof on electors, with 6.5 crore names (around 11%) deleted from the electoral rolls across the States, where the combined electorate had stood at 58.88 crore before the SIR began.

On June 25, the panel met Home Minister Amit Shah and informed him about its decision to visit States and interact with various Union Ministries