The Registrar General of India (RGI) has instructed all States and Union Territories to complete appointing census functionaries by January 15, 2026. These functionaries include enumerators and supervisors who will collect data for Census 2027. Each enumerator will cover about 700-800 people. One supervisor will manage six enumerators. There will also be 10% reserve staff ready for any issues. According to Census Rules 1990, government teachers, clerks, or officials can be enumerators. Supervisors are officers ranked above enumerators. District collectors or district magistrates will serve as principal census officers in their areas. Divisional commissioners and municipal commissioners will act as senior officers where applicable. Around 30 lakh field workers will be deployed to carry out the population count within a set time. To ensure smooth work, RGI has set up a web portal called Census Management and Monitoring System (CMMS). This portal will manage appointments, assign work blocks, and track field progress in real time. States must register all census functionaries on the CMMS with complete details well before appointments. Census 2027 will happen in two steps. The first phase, House Listing and Housing Census, will run from April to September 2026 for 30 days based on states’ convenience. The second phase, Population Enumeration, will take place in February 2027 with a reference date of midnight March 1, 2027. Regions like Ladakh, Jammu and Kashmir’s snow-bound areas, Himachal Pradesh, and Uttarakhand will conduct enumeration in September 2026. The entire exercise will be digital and include caste data collection as cleared by the Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs in April 2025.