New Delhi, Dec. 12 -- The Union Cabinet on Friday approved the proposal for conducting the Census of India 2027 - which is the largest administrative and statistical exercise in the world - at a cost of Rs 11,718.24 crore.

Briefing about the cabinet decisions, Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said Census 2027 will be the sixteenth in the series and the eighth since Independence.

"Census 2027 will be the first-ever digital census. The digital design of the census has been made keeping in mind data protection," he said.

The Census of India would be conducted in two phases: (i) Houselisting and Housing Census - April to September, 2026 and (ii) Population Enumeration (PE) - February 2027 (For the UT of Ladakh a...