Census 2027: Ladakh to lead caste enumeration in independent India
Census form likely to have 40 questions, defence structures to be recorded on paper
Ladakh, one of India's newest Union Territories, is poised to spearhead the caste enumeration for the first time in independent India during the upcoming Census 2027. The second phase of the Census, known as Population Enumeration (PE), is scheduled to commence on August 17 in Ladakh and other remote regions, including snow-bound areas of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, and Uttarakhand.
This phase is expected to encompass 40 parameters and provide an open-ended column for caste enumeration, allowing respondents to self-report their caste identity. The rehearsal, or pre-test, for the PE phase took place from July 1 to 20 in 16 states and union territories, where individuals who were not Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe castes were asked to record their caste in an open column or where the enumerator noted the caste as declared by the respondent.
The digital Census, which is India's first, mandates that enumerators geo-locate structures on a mobile app, a requirement that Ladakh has been accommodated for due to the presence of significant defense establishments in the region bordering China and Pakistan. The data collected during the Census will be used to create a comprehensive demographic profile of the country, and the open-column methodology for caste enumeration is expected to yield a wide range of caste names, similar to the 2011 Socio-Economic Caste Census (SECC), which returned over 46 lakh different caste names.
Written by urgent.news from The Hindu's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
