‘Snow-bound villages in Uttarakhand drop from 150 to 131’

Dehradun: Four hill districts of Uttarakhand — Pithoragarh, Uttarkashi, Chamoli and Rudraprayag — had 150 snow-bound villages in the 2011 census; this number has now dropped to 131, officials said, attributing the shift to climate change and improved infrastructure, as the state prepares for the next census exercise.

Census 2027 will be conducted in two phases. The first phase — house listing and housing census (HLO) — will be carried out from April 25 to May 24 this year, with enumerators visiting households. Ahead of this, residents can opt for self-enumeration between April 10 and April 24 through the portal (se.census.gov.in), a facility being introduced for the first time.

Director of census operations Eva Ashish Srivastava said the exercise would be fully digital, with data captured through mobile applications. “This marks the start of the country’s largest administrative and statistical exercise,” she said, adding that the census will also collect details on electronic devices such as mobile phones, tablets and laptops.

Census secretary Deepak Kumar said self-enumeration would require the name of the head of the household and a mobile number, with each number valid for only one household. The process is expected to take only 15–20 minutes, and details such as name and language cannot be changed after OTP verification. The web-based facility is available in 16 regional languages. All data will remain confidential under the Census Act, 1948, secured through encryption and multi-level authentication, he added. During the HLO phase, detailed information on housing conditions, household amenities and assets through 33 notified questions will be collected, forming the basis for policy planning and welfare schemes.

The second phase — population enumeration — will be conducted across the state from Feb 9 to Feb 28, 2027. However, in 131 snow-bound villages and three urban areas in the four hill districts, enumeration will be carried out earlier, between Sept 11 and Sept 30, 2026, under special provisions.

Officials said district magistrates and municipal commissioners have been appointed as principal census officers, supported by a trained network of master trainers, field trainers, enumerators and supervisors. The governor and chief minister will symbolically begin the self-enumeration process on April 10.

India’s first census was conducted in 1872, while the first after independence was held in 1951. The upcoming exercise will be the country’s 16th census overall and the eighth since independence, and will also include caste-based enumeration.