This is the first time the census exercise will be carried digitally: Amit Shah

Announcing that the 2021 census exercise will be carried out digitally, Home Minister Amit Shah suggested one card for all utilities in the future.

Speaking at the foundation stone laying ceremony for construction of a new building of Registrar General of India (RGI) that conducts the census exercise, Mr. Shah said the digital census has the potential to bring all kinds of cards such as Aadhaar, passport, bank account, driving license under one platform. "Why is it so difficult to link and update birth and death registration with census data?" he wondered.

The decennial Census exercise will be undertaken in 2021 and for the first time, will move from paper to digital format. Mr. Shah also said ₹12,000 crore would be spent on preparation of National Population Register (NPR) and census.

Mr. Shah said that the NPR will be updated on a priority basis as it helps in tracking criminal activities and better planning and execution of government schemes. The NPR links biometric and demographic details of any ordinary resident of the country, thus making it a comprehensive database of residents.

The exercise was conducted earlier in two phases in 2010 and 2015. The next round of recording biometric and family tree details of Indian citizens will be conducted in September 2020, a government notification issued earlier said. T

The NPR exercise is different from the decennial census and is not linked to the National Register of Citizens (NRC). For the purpose of NPR, an ordinary resident is defined as a person who has resided in a local area for past six months or more or a person who intends to reside in that area for the next six months or more.