2 min readNew DelhiFeb 18, 2026 01:08 AM IST
With the country gearing up for the 16th Census next year, the Delhi government has kicked off preparations for the houselisting exercise, which is scheduled to start from April 15. Over 40,000 employees will be trained in the coming days to conduct the survey on ground, said officials.
The exercise will conclude by June, said a senior official from the Revenue department. “The mapping of houselisting blocks, comprising around 180-200 households, has already started. After the mapping work is completed, each houselisting block will be assigned an enumerator for gathering information from people during this exercise,” the official explained. The houselisting exercise is designed to create a comprehensive inventory of buildings and households.
The training of the master trainers has been completed. “Now, they will train officials in each revenue district in batches, before the census survey begins,” the official added.
The Planning department has appointed 10 statistical officers as master trainers for this houselisting exercise.
During the census, the assigned official or government employee will ask 33 questions during the houselisting and housing phase. These included building number, census house number, predominant materials used in floor, wall, roof of house, use and condition of house, total number of persons in the household, name of head of household. Other questions may be related to the ownership of house, number of dwelling rooms, main source of drinking water, main source of lighting, access to toilet and bathroom, fuel used for cooking, use of radio, television, computer, laptop, bicycle, car, jeep, van, main cereal consumed, and use of mobile.
The Census 2027 comprises two phases. The houselisting and housing phase will be followed by population enumeration in February 2027, encompassing the collection of demographic, socio-economic data covering caste.
Officials said that a mobile app has been designed for the census exercise.
