Ghaziabad: With the special intensive revision (SIR) of the electoral roll of voters nearing completion, preparations for Census 2027 have begun in Ghaziabad and Noida, with house listing and housing enumeration scheduled from May 22 to June 20.For the first time, the census will be conducted entirely in digital mode, including a self-enumeration option. The second phase—covering population and caste enumeration—is slated for Feb 9 to 28 next year, followed by a revision round from March 1 to 5.Officials said Ghaziabad has been divided into 7,914 enumerator blocks, while the block-mapping exercise is still underway in Noida. “Around 8,593 enumerators and 1,432 supervisors are likely to be deployed in Ghaziabad,” said additional district magistrate (finance/revenue) Saurabh Bhatt. He added that training for four master trainers has been completed, and 134 field trainers are scheduled to undergo training in March, even as the Census Directorate conducted its first training programme for district officials on Thursday.At a meeting of the District Census Coordination Committee, Bhatt directed charge officers to review all circulars issued by the Census Directorate, finalise enumerator blocks in their jurisdictions and set up census cells at the charge level. Officials were also asked to identify training venues and ensure wide public awareness about the upcoming exercise. Charge officers are appointed by state govts to assist in census operations.In Noida, ADM (finance/revenue) Atul Kumar said 12 charge officers, one each for the three tehsils, six nagar panchayats and three development authorities, have been appointed. “Each charge officer is now mapping their areas into enumeration blocks,” he said, adding that they received training from census officials last week.The exercise will be held after a 16-year gap, with the last census conducted in 2011. According to Census 2011, the population of the Gautam Buddha Nagar was 1,648,115, with 890,214 males and 757,901 females. Ghaziabad had a population of 4,681,645, making it the third most populous district in Uttar Pradesh at the time. Meanwhile, the SIR exercise is nearing completion with a March 6 deadline for new voter registrations (Form 6) and corrections or updates to voter details (Form 8).The draft electoral rolls published on Jan 6 showed a sharp drop in voter numbers in both districts. In Noida, the electorate fell from 18.7 lakh to 14.3 lakh, a reduction of nearly 4.4 lakh names. Ghaziabad recorded a steeper decline, with the draft roll listing 20.1 lakh voters, down from an earlier 28.4 lakh, indicating a provisional cut of 8.3 lakh names.Around three lakh voters across the two districts remain categorised as “unmapped”— voters whose names figure in the draft rolls but their details could not be verified against the 2003 electoral rolls. Election officials are serving notices to these voters and conducting hearings to verify documents before deciding on their inclusion in the final rolls. According to the State Election Commission, hearings for all unmapped voters, along with the processing of new applications and corrections, will be completed by March 27. The final electoral rolls are scheduled to be published on April 10.
