Newdelhi: The Centre has amended the Census Rules, 1990, allowing states and Union territories to appoint teachers from aided and unaided private institutions as enumerators for the ongoing census exercise, officials told news agency Press Trust of India.
The amendment comes amid a legal challenge to the deployment of teachers from private unaided schools for census duty. It also specifies the categories of teachers, officials and other people who may be appointed as census officers.
In a gazette notification issued on Friday, Registrar General of India Mrityunjay Kumar Narayan amended the rules, which earlier stated that teachers, clerks, or any official or any person could be appointed by state governments and Union territory administrations as census officers to carry out enumeration.
According to PTI, the notification now allows the appointment of teachers from educational institutions run by the government, local authorities, aided or unaided private bodies, societies or trusts. Clerks or officials of the central government, state governments, local authorities and establishments, including public sector undertakings, statutory bodies, banks, companies, institutions, societies and trusts, can also be appointed. State governments and Union territory administrations may appoint any other person they consider suitable.
The changes follow a petition filed by the Haryana Progressive Schools Conference in the Punjab and Haryana High Court, challenging the requisition and deployment of teaching staff from private unaided schools for census duty.
In an order dated October 8, Justice Harpreet Singh Brar stayed the operation of two Haryana government communications that sought details of teachers available for census duty. The matter has been listed for April 29, 2027. The petitioner argued that the government had no authority under the Census Act, 1948, or the rules framed under it to requisition teachers from private unaided schools for appointment as census enumerators or supervisors.
The plea said Section 4A of the Census Act specifically provides for officers and staff of local authorities to be made available for census-related work. It argued that private unaided schools and their employees do not fall within the definition or scope of a local authority.
The 2027 Census, the eighth since Independence, is being conducted in two phases: house-listing and the housing census, followed by population enumeration. The exercise was scheduled for 2021 but was postponed because of the Covid-19 outbreak.
The Union Cabinet has approved Rs 11,718 crore for the census, which will be the biggest population count conducted so far.
Population enumeration in Goa, Uttar Pradesh and Punjab, as well as areas of Uttarakhand other than its snow-bound regions, will be held from December 1, 2026, to January 4, 2027, because Assembly elections are scheduled in these states next year.
The Centre has deferred the house-listing exercise for Census 2027 in Manipur, according to a notification issued by the Registrar General of India last month.
The exercise in Ladakh and the snow-bound areas of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, where the census schedule differs from the rest of the country, was conducted from September 1 to 30.
For the rest of the country, the exercise is likely to begin next February. It will collect demographic, socio-cultural and economic data, along with information about migration and fertility, from members of each household.
The amended rules, therefore, widen the categories of people who may be deployed as enumerators for Census 2027, even as the challenge to the appointment of teachers from private unaided schools remains before the Punjab and Haryana High Court.