NEW DELHI: The Indian government said on Tuesday the forthcoming census will be held digitally, the first digital census in the country.

The information was given by the federal junior minister for home affairs Nityanand Rai in a written reply to the lower house of the Indian parliament, locally called Lok Sabha.

“The forthcoming census is to be the first digital census and there is a provision for self-enumeration. Mobile App for collection of data and a census portal for management and monitoring of various census related activities have been developed,” the minister said.

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the 2021 census and other related field activities have been postponed until further orders, the minister added.

Census in India is a decadal exercise to enumerate the country’s population. It is one of the largest administrative and statistical exercises in the world. The exercise requires visiting every household across the country for the purpose of enumeration and involves the services of 3 million employees.

Last year the first phase of the census was postponed due to the Covid-19 outbreak.-Xinhua