From shanties to Taj, every structure under census house-listing lens

Lucknow: Every man-made structure, right from a roadside shanty to the iconic Taj Mahal, from the sacred Kashi Vishwanath Temple and Ram temple to luxury five-star hotels, malls and apartments, has been brought under the ambit of the house-listing operation as Uttar Pradesh formally launched the first phase of Census 2027 on Thursday.

Speaking on the first day of the field exercise, and chief principal census officer, Uttar Pradesh, Sheetal Verma said the primary objective of the first day of the census fieldwork was the numbering of all buildings.

She explained that the first phase of Census 2027 was called house listing and housing census, under which every building would be identified and assigned a unique number irrespective of its nature, purpose or construction type.

“Every structure has to be covered during this phase. A building may be residential, partially residential or completely non-residential. It may be a temporary ‘kutcha’ structure or a permanent construction. All such buildings are assigned a number during the listing process,” Verma said.

Officials said the exercise was designed to create an accurate database of all physical structures and households in the state before the population enumeration phase begins.

The state govt confirmed that prior to the launch of door-to-door field operations, the self-enumeration process was conducted between May 7 and May 21. By the final day, a total of 47,96,158 families successfully completed self-enumeration, reflecting growing public awareness and participation in the census process.

On May 22, enumerators and supervisors began house-to-house surveys across 3,89,312 housing listing blocks (HLBs) spread throughout the state. On the first day itself, officials prioritised assigning census house numbers and preparing layout maps for each enumeration block.

Census teams reached 1,35,02,160 houses on the inaugural day and marked them with census house numbers. By 4:30 pm, work was already completed in 56 HLBs, while digital data collection through the mobile application commenced in 14,546 HLBs.