The Census of India, 2011, is a historic and epoch making Census being the second Census of the twenty first century and of the third millennium. It will throw up benchmark data on the state of abundant human resources habitating our country, their demography, culture and economic structure at a juncture which marks the transition from one century and millennium to the next. Thus, the Census of India, 2011, can be aptly termed as the Millennium Census.

The earliest references of Census taking in India can be traced back to the Mauryan period in Kautilya’s ‘Arthshastra’ (321-296 BC) and later during the Mughal period in ‘Aian-e-Akbari’. A systematic and modern population Census, in its present scientific form was conducted non-synchronously between 1865 and 1872 in different parts of country. This effort culminating in 1872 has been popularly labelled as the first population Census. However, the first synchronous Census in India was held in 1881. Since then, Censuses have been undertaken uninterruptedly once every ten year. The Census of India, 2011, is the fifteen Census in this continuous series as reckoned from 1872 and the seventh since independence.

Extract of 1872