New Delhi: The Budget 2024-24 on Tuesday allocated Rs 1,309.46 crore for census, a significant reduction from 2021-22 when Rs 3,768 crore was allocated for the decadal exercise, an indication that it may not be carried out even after a significant delay. A meeting of the Union cabinet on December 24, 2019 had approved the proposal for conducting census of India 2021 at a cost of Rs 8,754.23 crore and updating the National Population Register (NPR) at a cost of Rs 3,941.35 crore.

The house listing phase of the census and the exercise to update the NPR were scheduled to be carried out across the country from April 1 to September 30, 2020 but were postponed due to the Covid-19 outbreak. The census operation continues to be on hold and the government has not yet announced the new schedule. Officials said since general elections had taken place this year, the census exercise will not be able to be carried out in 2024.

According to the Budget 2024-25, Rs 1,309.46 crore has been allocated for census surveys and statistics, and it was Rs 578.29 in 2023-24. The entire census and NPR exercise is likely to cost the government over Rs 12,000 crore, the officials said. This exercise, whenever it will happen, will be the first digital census giving the citizens an opportunity to self-enumerate.

The NPR has been made compulsory for citizens who want to exercise the right to fill the census form on their own rather than through government enumerators. For this, the census authority has designed a self-enumeration portal which is yet to be launched.