A senior state govt official said this phase would focus solely on self-enumeration and house listing. “Citizens will be able to enter their details on the census portal between May 1 and 15, after which enumerators will begin household visits for the house listing survey, including about 33 questions,” the official said.The state recently conducted a pilot project to test the digital census system. Issues related to technology and field operations were identified and resolved before the rollout. People who cannot self-enumerate online will be covered through door-to-door visits.In Maharashtra, training of nearly 2.6 lakh govt personnel for the state’s first fully digital census has already started. “The training, which began in Jan, will continue till early May. In a cascaded model, national and master trainers are trained first, followed by field trainers and then enumerators. Training sessions for field trainers are likely to take place in Pune next month,” another official said.For the first time, enumerators will record data entirely through a cellphone application, instead of paper forms. “Both online and offline data entry will be permitted. District-level training sessions are ongoing, and senior officials are holding online review meetings with municipal commissioners and district collectors to track progress and address operational challenges,” the official said.Earlier this month, the chief secretary chaired the first state-level Census Coordination Committee meeting for Maharashtra, attended by officials from the Directorate of Census Operations. Departments were instructed to ensure timely appointment and training of field staff. A detailed roadmap was also prepared, covering deployment of lakhs of field personnel, use of a dedicated questionnaire for house listing, mobile app–based data collection, and security protocols for the large-scale digital exercise.
