Census (Amendment) Rules, 2026: MHA widens enumerator eligibility to private school teachers and other staff

Key facts

• The Ministry of Home Affairs issued a Gazette notification introducing the Census (Amendment) Rules, 2026, under the Census Act, 1948, revising the list of eligible enumerators.
• Under the amended rules, teachers of government, local authority, aided or unaided private educational institutions, and institutions run by societies or trusts, can be appointed as enumerators by state governments and Union territories.
• The amendment also allows clerks and officials of the central and state governments, local authorities, and establishments including public sector undertakings, statutory bodies, banks, companies, institutions, societies and trusts, as well as any person the state government or UT administration considers suitable, to be appointed as census officers performing enumerator duties.
• The amendment follows various high courts staying orders requisitioning teachers of aided or unaided private schools for census duty, including stays by the Punjab and Haryana High Court, the Allahabad High Court, and the Nagpur Bench of the Bombay High Court.
• The 2027 Census, the eighth since independence, will be conducted in two phases — house-listing and housing census, and population enumeration — with Union Cabinet approval of Rs 11,718 crore, making it the biggest headcount exercise to date.
• Population enumeration in Goa, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and non-snow-bound areas of Uttarakhand will take place from December 1 to January 4, 2027, due to assembly elections, while house-listing in snow-bound non-synchronous areas of Ladakh, Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand was held from September 1 to 30, and for the rest of the country it is likely to begin in February.