Manipur formally left out of Census 2027 schedule in Gazette notice after "No NRC, No Census" campaign
India's Registrar General has formally excluded Manipur from the Census 2027 schedule in a Gazette notification, leaving the state's enumeration deferred until a further declaration, after months of protests demanding an updated National Register of Citizens first.
India's Registrar General and Census Commissioner has formally excluded Manipur from the Census 2027 schedule, declaring in a Gazette notification issued on Thursday, 30 October, that the population census will be conducted in every state and union territory except Manipur, until a further declaration.
The notification, issued under Section 3 of the Census Act, 1948, read with Rules 6A and 6D of the Census Rules, 1990, sets out the national timetable for everywhere else: house-to-house enumeration from 25 January to 28 February 2027, followed by a revisional round from 1 to 5 March, with a self-enumeration window from 10 to 24 January and a reference date of midnight on 1 March 2027.
The same notification places Goa, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Uttarakhand, the union territory of Ladakh, and the snow-bound non-synchronous areas of Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir on a separate timetable, but Manipur alone is excluded outright, with no dates at all, until the government says otherwise.
The decision is the formal conclusion of a campaign fought under the slogan 'No NRC, No Census'. Civil society organisations from the Meitei and Naga communities have insisted for months that the National Register of Citizens must be updated before any headcount, arguing that counting first could register undocumented migrants, including alleged recent arrivals from Myanmar and Bangladesh, as residents.
The campaigners' demand is specific: an NRC built on 1951 as the base year, followed by the census and then by delimitation of constituencies, a sequence summed up in a second slogan, 'No NRC, No Delimitation'. The Manipur assembly has adopted resolutions backing an updated NRC, including one on 5 August 2022 and another on 1 March 2024.
The road to the Gazette notice began on 31 August, when the Centre deferred house-listing operations in Manipur after protests, following a high-level review meeting chaired by Union Home Minister Amit Shah. The Manipur High Court had separately paused census-related work, including house-listing, until further orders from the Registrar General.
Former chief minister N. Biren Singh welcomed the notification, writing that 'the voices of Manipur's indigenous people have been heard' and calling it a welcome development amid the long-standing demand for NRC before census. Chief Minister Yumnam Khemchand Singh said the deferral took account of people's concerns about updating the NRC.
The demand is not unopposed. The Kuki-Zo Council has argued that the census should come first and has described the NRC-first demand as premature and politically motivated, saying its intention is to obstruct the census. That divide runs through a state still scarred by ethnic violence and heading towards assembly elections due in early 2027.
In recent weeks the state government has moved to meet the campaigners part-way, saying it would approach the Centre for a complete deferment, strengthen the Manipur State Population Commission, prepare a population policy and publish a white paper on the NRC process. The campaign group JFD has paused the intensive phase of its protests while warning it will watch the government's actions closely.
What happens next now depends on that NRC process. One possibility is that the Centre issues a fresh declaration bringing Manipur into the census once NRC work is under way; another is that the state votes in its assembly election first, with the census and delimitation questions still unresolved. Until then, Manipur remains the one state in India with no census date at all.
