Census 2027: Centre opens tender, invites bids from printers in Delhi-NCR

Last month, the government had formally announced that the 16th Census of India will be held and set March 1, 2027, as the reference date for most of the country, and October 1, 2026, for snow-bound and remote regions such as Ladakh, Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand. The Census will include the first nationwide caste enumeration since 1931.

The tender document states that the Indian Census is the most credible source of information on demography (population characteristics), economic activity, literacy and education, housing and household amenities, urbanisation, fertility and mortality, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, language, religion, migration, disability and many other socio-cultural and demographic data since 1872.

“Forthcoming Census will be the 16th National Census of the Country. This is the only source of primary data in the village, town and ward level. It provides valuable information for planning and formulation policies for Central and the State Governments and is widely used by national and international agencies, scholars, business people, industrialists, and many more,” it said, adding that the decision to empanel reputed printers from the open market was taken with the approval of the competent authority.

Explaining the scope of work, it said the empanelment of printers was to undertake the activities of composing (through DTP), scanning, plate making, printing including paper, binding, and packaging of ORGI’s material like publications, forms, schedules, instruction manuals by the offset printing process.

The documents will be printed in Hindi, English and regional languages.

“The payment will be released only after the successful completion of the job assigned within the stipulated time and satisfactory acceptance by this office. All proofs, negatives, positives, CRC/MSS, PDF and open file in soft copy, trial copies, spare copies will be the property of ORGI and have to be returned to ORGI along with the printed material,” it added.

On Monday, the Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India said in a post on X, the Census will be conducted in two phases. “Phase first; Houselisting and Housing Census will start from April 2026, and phase two; Population Enumeration. Census 2027 will be the first digital census in the country and data will be collected using mobile apps – both Android and iOS – in English, Hindi and regional languages. Enumerators/ Supervisors will use their own mobile device for data collection,” the post said.