Home Ministry: No Decision on NPR Update During Census

Quick Summary

• The Union government has not decided whether the National Population Register (NPR) will be updated during Census 2027. Officials conveyed this to Census directors at a preparatory meeting.
• NPR was created in 2010 and last updated in 2015-16.It contains household details of India’s 119 crore residents and shares data at the individual level.
• Training for census enumerators begins in late July, 2025. Mobile apps will be used for data collection for the first time.
• The pre-test exercise starts in August and September,but it won’t include questions on Population enumeration or NPR updates – marking a methodological change from earlier pre-tests.
• Questions on caste enumeration are to be included for the first time as Independence but won’t feature in pre-tests due to pending methodology finalization.
• The census, delayed by COVID since its planned execution in 2021, is now set to conclude by February 2027.

Controversies:

• Questions pertaining to parents’ birthplaces and additional identifiers like Aadhaar or voter IDs caused widespread protests during past NPR exercises (2019-20), particularly amid concerns about their role as precursors for a National Register of Citizens (NRC).

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