Delayed Census- Reasons & Implications

Following 2 years of delay, the census exercise is expected to be delayed even further. The 2021 exercise is not expected to commence before September 2023.

What are the recent developments?

• The administrative boundaries are to be frozen from July 1st 2023 onwards. The boundaries are frozen to stop the reorganization/ creation of districts and tehsils, for such changes during a census would lead to chaos.
• Usually, the house-listing operations are taken up in different states at different times between March and September of the year before the census year. This time, it is still unclear whether the house-listing operations would be synchronized to reduce the gap between the boundary freezing and the census enumeration.
• The government is yet to