Datanomics: Census exercise gets financial backup in Union Budget 2026

Budget 2026-27 raises census allocation to a record ₹6,000 crore, but its share of total expenditure remains lower than in previous census years

The Union Budget for 2026-27 has allocated ₹6,000 crore for the Census exercise. This is the highest allocation in absolute terms, but it trails the previous two Census years in terms of its share of total expenditure. Between FY2001 and FY26, a total of ₹30,786 crore was estimated for the Registrar General of India, the nodal agency responsible for conducting the Census in India. However, only about 58 per cent of this amount was actually spent during this period.

 

The Union Cabinet recently approved ₹11,718 crore to conduct the Census in 2027, which is around 0.03 per cent of India’s total gross domestic product (GDP).

 

Lower budgeted expenditure

 

Union Budgets allocated at least 0.2 per cent of total expenditure in the previous two Census years. This year’s allocation is lower as a share of total expenditure (for Phase 1), even as the Cabinet approval is almost double the Budget allocation. 

 

Actual expenditure was almost the same as the budget estimate (BE) in FY2001, the first Census year of this century, while it exceeded the BE in FY11, the subsequent Census year. 

 

India’s Census allocation as a share of GDP lies somewhere in the middle among the most populous countries, with Bangladesh, the United States, and Pakistan at the top.