The upcoming census will be digital for the first time and people will have the option of self enumeration, Lok Sabha was informed on Tuesday. The housing listing phase of the census and the exercise to update the National Population Register (NPR) were scheduled to be carried out across the country from April 1 to September 30, 2020 but had to be postponed due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

“The forthcoming census is to be the first digital census and there is a provision for self-enumeration. The census 2021 and related field activities have been postponed until further orders due to outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic,” Union Minister of State for Home Nityanand Rai said in a written reply to a question. According to the earlier schedule, the census would have its reference date as March 1, 2021 and in Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, it would have been October 1, 2020.