State may seek SIR deferment over Census overlap

Pune: The Maharashtra govt is likely to approach the Election Commission of India (ECI) seeking deferment of the proposed special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls scheduled from April, citing an overlap with the first phase of Census 2027, senior state govt sources told TOI.

Last week, the ECI wrote to chief electoral officers of 22 states, including Maharashtra and Union Territories, directing them to expedite preparatory work for SIR likely to begin from April 2026. The work includes mapping existing voters with the electoral rolls of 2002–2004 — when the last SIR was conducted — and training booth-level officers (BLOs) to carry out the exercise.


However, the first phase of Census 2027 — house listing and housing census — is scheduled from May 16 to June 14, 2026. A self-enumeration facility will be available from May 1 to May 15. Officials said preparations for the census are in the final stages and district-level training has already begun for officials.

"The staffers engaged for census work will have to be used again for SIR. We are considering requesting a deferment to avoid this overlap and will discuss the matter formally next week," a senior state government official said.

Officials said the same field machinery, including teachers and revenue staffers, would be deployed for both exercises. Around 2.64 lakh enumerators and supervisors are expected to be engaged in census duties across the state. They will record data directly into the census management and monitoring system using mobile devices to avoid delay in data collection. A self-enumeration facility will also be made available to citizens before enumerators visit households.

"With school examinations under way and census work scheduled to begin shortly, it will be difficult to undertake SIR simultaneously," another senior official said. Sources added that teachers involved in examination duties would be stretched if they required to participate in back-to-back exercises. "It would be very strenuous for teachers, starting with school exams followed by SIR and then again census," an official said.

Ahead of the EC's letter, a state-level conference on preparedness for Census 2027 reiterated that the exercise would be conducted in two phases, with the first phase focused on house-listing and housing data collection. Officials maintained that manpower deployment for the census has already been planned and reallocating staffers at short notice for SIR could disrupt timelines.

The state Chief Electoral Office has not yet formally reached out to the ECI on the issue, a senior official said, adding that it would be up to the state govt to seek any deferment in view of the census rollout.

The SIR exercise involves door-to-door verification of voters, removal of duplicate or ineligible entries, and inclusion of eligible citizens who may have been left out of the rolls. As per SIR instructions, all existing registered electors are required to submit enumeration forms, and certain categories must provide additional documents to establish eligibility, including citizenship.

Even as SIR is under way in 12 states, the commission has asked the remaining 22 states and Union Territories, including Maharashtra, to prepare for the exercise from April.

Maharashtra is among 22 states—including Andhra Pradesh, Punjab, Telangana, and Delhi—asked to prepare for the April rollout. The ECI has not conducted an intensive revision of this magnitude since the early 2000s, when electoral rolls were last prepared entirely afresh.