The census has been postponed five times over the past four years – initially due to the Covid-19 pandemic and later even without citing any reason. Last year, the home ministry deferred it to October 2024. But skepticism persists as the allocated budget of Rs 1,300 crore is significantly lower than the Rs 12,600 crore promised by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2019.

In this conversation with Newslaundry, former registrar general and census commissioner AR Nanda sheds light on the impact of the delay in the census, the linkage of the National Population Register with the census, past practices, and the government’s alleged interference in the exercise. 

Nanda says, “We have brilliant officers [in charge of census] and they have technical support, but, unfortunately, none of them, including the present one, have field experience in conducting the census on the field…Field experience is important because it is a massive exercise” involving elaborate government machinery.   

He says that the census is a “valuable” exercise and the delay has particularly impacted the beneficiaries of the government welfare schemes because of the lack of data for over 14 years. “The coverage is not known. It is all tentatively being calculated, which cannot match the census data.”   

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