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Representation: delimitation, seats and women's reservation

How seats are drawn and shared: the census, delimitation and the freeze on seats among States, and the reservation of seats in the legislatures.

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Census 2027

Prelims and Mains

LeadCensus 2027: caste returns, and the road to delimitationSeptember 2026

Why in news

The first phase of Census 2027, the listing of houses, closed on 30 September 2026. Through September the population count began in Ladakh and the snow bound areas, the first since 1931 to record caste. The Centre deferred the census in Manipur.

Background

The census is a Union subject, held under the Census Act, 1948 by the Registrar General and Census Commissioner, who works under the Home Ministry.
The count due in 2021 was postponed. Census 2027 is the 16th census, the eighth since Independence, and the first in sixteen years.
It is the first digital census: enumerators use a mobile application, and households may fill in their own details online.
It has two phases: houselisting (April to September 2026) and population enumeration (February 2027), with 1 March 2027 as the reference date.

Caste after 95 years

The population schedule has 40 questions. One now records caste for everyone, and not only for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.
The caste is written as the person states it, not picked from a list.
For it: reservation and welfare rest on figures of 1931; courts ask for current data before quotas are extended.
Against it: open answers will yield lakhs of names that need classifying, and a count may harden caste identity.

Three reference dates

1 October 2026: Ladakh and the snow bound areas of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, counted in September.
5 January 2027: the four States that go to the polls in 2027 (in Uttarakhand, only parts of the State), counted from November.
1 March 2027: the rest of India.

Manipur: a count or a register first

Houselisting in Manipur was deferred "till further declaration".
Groups there want a National Register of Citizens first, since census figures will shape delimitation.

The difference: a census counts every usual resident, citizen or not. A register of citizens decides citizenship, and has been prepared only in Assam.

What rides on the census

Delimitation: the freeze on Lok Sabha seats among States lasts until the first census after 2026.
Women's reservation: begins only after a delimitation based on this census.
Money: the Finance Commission uses population in sharing taxes among States.
Privacy: the schedule also asks for identity and bank details; the Census Act keeps individual returns confidential, and they cannot be used as evidence.

Cases to cite

Indra Sawhney v. Union of India (1992): caste can be a starting point for identifying backwardness; reservation is capped at 50 per cent.
K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India (2017): privacy is a fundamental right; the State may collect data only by law, for a legitimate aim and in proportion.
State of Punjab v. Davinder Singh (2024): sub classification of Scheduled Castes must rest on data.

The way forward

Publish in advance how caste answers will be classified, with an expert body and State lists.
Count Manipur before any delimitation is done on these figures.
Release data on a fixed calendar; the tables of 2011 took years.
Hold a census every ten years by law, so that it cannot be put off without Parliament.

Prelims facts

Census is Entry 69 of the Union List; the law is the Census Act, 1948.
The first synchronous census was in 1881; the last caste count was in 1931.
The Census Act does not fix how often a census is held; ten years is a practice.
Reference date for most of India: 00:00 hours on 1 March 2027.
The Registrar General and Census Commissioner is under the Ministry of Home Affairs.

Open the lead on its own page

The census is a Union subject, held under the Census Act, 1948 by the Registrar General and Census Commissioner, who works under the Home Ministry.

What changed

5 Sep 2026LeadCensus 2027: caste returns, and the road to delimitation