India’s first census phase is nearing completion across states and union territories, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in his 27 September radio address. He said information covering more than 320 million families had been recorded.
Modi described continuing work in remote parts of Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, and Uttarakhand. The update concerned progress in the enumeration exercise, not the publication of a final national population total.
He also said more than 26 million people had entered their details through mobile self-enumeration. The family count and the number of people using the digital facility measure different things and cannot be added together.
Under the process he described, residents submit family information digitally and receive an identifier to share with an enumerator. The information becomes part of the census record after verification. Modi presented participation as a civic responsibility and linked accurate records to the country’s planning needs.