The Union government has assured Denotified, Nomadic, and Semi-Nomadic Tribes (DNTs) community leaders that the upcoming 2027 Census will include enumeration of these groups. However, there is no clarity on how this will be done. DNT leaders want a separate column in the Census form for their communities. This request has support from academics who say this has been a repeated demand in official commissions. The DNTs were once called "criminal tribes" under the British-era Criminal Tribes Act (CTA) of 1871. The act labeled certain communities as criminal by birth. The CTA was repealed in 1952, and these groups were "denotified." However, laws targeting "habitual offenders" kept discriminating against them. Census reports counted these communities as "criminal tribes" until 1931. After independence, they stopped being counted separately. Over time, many DNTs were included in Scheduled Castes (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST), and Other Backward Classes (OBC). But some 268 DNT communities remain unclassified. Several commissions since 1998 recommended a full Census count of DNTs to properly identify and uplift them. The latest commission found around 1,200 DNT communities mostly merged into other groups. State governments have some policies for DNTs, but discrimination remains through lingering social stigma and laws. The government started the SEED scheme to support DNTs but has spent very little of the planned ₹200 crore budget. One problem is issuing DNT certificates. Few districts in some States provide these certificates, making it hard for many DNT members to access benefits. This has fueled the call for a separate constitutional category for DNTs, equal to SC, ST, and OBC, with uniform certification. DNT groups argue their unique history and discrimination must be recognized separately. Though the government has promised enumeration, it has not accepted demands for a separate DNT classification in the Census forms. Community leaders say only a specific Census question or column will meet their needs. The debate on counting and classifying DNTs continues ahead of the 2027 Census.