NEW DELHI: The home ministry on Wednesday told the Rajya Sabha that questions on caste — which is to be captured in the second phase of Census 2027, that is, the population enumeration phase — will be notified along with rest of the questions, “before the commencement of the second phase of the census operation”.“The questions, including on caste, for the second phase will be finalised and notified as per the established procedure,” junior home minister Nityanand Rai said in reply to a written question. As per records checked by TOI, the questionnaire for population enumeration stage of Census 2011 was notified by the then UPA govt only towards the end of first stage of the census, that is, on Aug 31, 2010.Answering a separate question, Rai on Wednesday shared that though census 2027 will be digital exercise, there will be provision for offline data collection in the mobile apps. “Only in unavoidable circumstances, enumerators may collect data in paper mode and in such a situation the data will be digitised at the charge level itself,’ he clarified. Stating that the digital census will be conducted through mobile apps, census management and monitoring portal and self-enumeration portal, he said enumerators shall undertake house-to-house field visits in their allotted enumeration block for collection of census data. “Provision of self- enumeration is an additional facility for the respondents to submit data. House-to-house visit of enumerator will ensure that there is no exclusion on any ground,” the minister said and assured that all suitable security measures have been provisioned for data collection, transmission and storage. The govt had on June 16, 2025, notified its intent to conduct Census 2027 in two phases, that is, the house listing operation (HLO) phase and population enumeration (PE). On Jan 22, 2026, it notified the questions for the first phase.While house listing operation involves collection of information regarding housing conditions, assets, amenities, etc. of each household in the country, the population enumeration phase captures the demographic, socio- economic, cultural, and other details of each individual. As clearly stated by the govt in a press note dated Dec 12, 2025, caste is to be enumerated in the PE phase, which is due only in February 2027. Despite this, some opposition parties have raised questions on the govt’s intent regarding caste census, asking why the questionnaire for Phase 1 did not list ‘caste’ as a field.