Shillong (Meghalaya), April 30: Meghalaya will roll out India’s first fully digital Census from , Friday ,May 1, 2026, with citizens getting direct access to enter their own household data online, the Directorate of Census Operations announced at the Shillong Press Club today.
Director Biswajit Pegu said self-enumeration will run from May 1 to May 15, 2026 through a dedicated portal, marking a major shift in how India counts its people. The data will then be verified by enumerators during house-to-house visits from May 16 to June 14 as part of Phase I House Listing Operations. The 33-question schedule will cover housing conditions, assets, and amenities.
Calling Census 2027 the 16th in India and the 8th since Independence, Pegu said the entire process will run on mobile apps and the Census Management and Monitoring System portal. The move aims to cut errors, speed up processing, and publish results faster. Phase II, Population Enumeration, is set for February 2027 with March 1, 2027 as the reference date.
Addressing privacy concerns, Pegu said a robust data security framework will ensure confidentiality. Individual and household-level details will never be disclosed. Only aggregated data will be used for policy and planning. Mobile numbers collected will be restricted to communication and verification.
Around 9,000 enumerators and supervisors will be deployed across Meghalaya under Deputy Commissioners as Principal Census Officers. Geo-coded House Listing Blocks will be mapped using the HLB Creator app, and all field data will flow through secure mobile applications. Joint Director Subhasish Chatterjee said a national toll-free helpline 1855 is already live to answer citizen queries on house-listing and enumeration.
Officials said administrative boundaries in Meghalaya have been frozen as of December 31, 2025 for the exercise. They appealed to the public to use the self-enumeration window and cooperate with field staff, stressing that accurate data is vital for development and governance. The Census is conducted under the Census Act, 1948 and Census Rules, 1990.
The directorate urged media to help spread awareness and counter misinformation so Meghalaya’s residents can participate confidently in the historic digital count.
