Assam to freeze administrative boundaries from Jan 1 ahead of digital census 2026
House listing will begin later in the year, with the census being conducted digitally for the first time, officials said.
Guwahati, Dec 31: The boundaries of the administrative units of Assam will be frozen from January 1 to pave the way for the census operations. Any administrative boundary change will have to be completed by tomorrow.
Official sources told The Assam Tribune that the Directorate of Census wanted to do the house listing for census from April to September, 2026 but the State Chief Secretary was of the view that it should be done after August 15 because of the ensuing polls to the State Assembly and monsoon season.
Sources revealed that preparations for the mega census operations are going on in full swing and lots of changes of administrative units took place since the last census. Some villages have turned into towns, while, towns were upgraded to municipal areas. All those issues would have to be taken into consideration before the census operation.
In the first stage, house listing will be carried out, which will be followed by creating enumeration blocks.
Around 800 households will be included in one enumeration block. However, the number of households in each enumeration block will be much less in the hilly or remote areas. As per census manual, most of the enumerators will be school teachers.
For the first time, the census operation will be done digitally. The enumerators will record the data in an app and the data will be fed directly into the main data base. That is why, the process will be much faster.
Earlier, the enumerators used to write down the data on paper and those were sent to the district headquarters and above, which used to take long time.
Sources revealed that as digital census will be held for the first time, trial run was done in three areas and the results were successful. Trial runs were done in Dibrugarh, Hailakandi and Donkamokam in Karbi Anglong.
However, sources said that uploading the results of the enumeration in the census app may be delayed in remote areas where the internet connection is not very fast.