The 2021 census will be conducted through a mobile phone application, thus making it India's first digital census moving away from traditional pen and paper. The exercise will also have a provision for self-enumeration.

A census portal has been developed to manage and monitor its related activities. The portal will require mobile phone numbers and other details of individuals to log in.

This will be the 16th census since the exercise began in 1872. FM Nirmala Sitharaman had announced an allocation of Rs 3,768 crore for a digital census during her budget speech and the initiative is part of the government's digital India drive.

Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Singapore, Netherlands, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Greenland, Bahrain, Estonia, USA, UK, Vietnam and Swaziland are some nations that have undertaken a digital census.

The mammoth nationwide exercise will be carried out in 16 languages and at a cost of Rs 12,000 crore. Home Minister Amit Shah, a year back, had said that data will help in future planning of the country, especially for development initiatives and welfare schemes.

How will this work?

An individual can fill in the details using relevant codes for each field in case of self-enumeration. An identification number will be sent on the registered number of the individual after self-enumeration. The data will then be synced once the number is shared with the enumerator.

School teachers will double up as enumerators to collect the data. Earlier enumerators used to visit every household and fill a form. As per estimates, India will be using 30 lakh enumerators for the census.

The Census 2021 exercise, when carried out, will enumerate only those SCs and STs that were notified through the constitutional orders of 1950, the government informed Parliament on Tuesday. Union minister Nityanand Rai said this in a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha on whether the government is planning to undertake a caste census along with the General Decennial Census 2021.

(Edited by : Abhishek Jha)