Ernakulam crosses 1-lakh in its own census enumeration

More than one million people have taken self-enumeration for the house-to-house census, the first phase of Census 2027 in Ernakulam.

As many as 1,04,491 respondents had entered the required details online as of 5 pm on Friday (June 26, 2026), officials said. Ernakulam led the list of districts in its own enumeration by a wide margin, with Malappuram recording a distant second with 48,457 respondents, followed by Thiruvananthapuram with 46,706.

Despite reaching 1-lakh, the response to the self-counting phase in Ernakulam district has fallen well below the district administration’s expectations with just four days left for the June 30 deadline, officials admitted.

According to an informal estimate, Ernakulam has around 10 million buildings, including residential houses, and officials said they expected residents of at least half of them to complete their own census.

“More self-enumeration would greatly facilitate the door-to-door enumeration phase that begins on July 1. It seems that the message about the importance of self-enumeration has not reached the people as intended,” said a senior district official.

With the deadline fast approaching, officials hope that participation will increase over the next few days. The administration has also sought the support of residents’ associations and elected representatives of local authorities to encourage more households to complete the process by June 30. Campaigns through various government offices, social media, Kochi Metro and Water Metro, digital boards and electronic media will also intensify over the weekend, officials said.

The self-count phase, which began on June 16, allows households to submit their details online before the door-to-door survey begins.

Officials said self-enumeration greatly reduces the workload of enumerators. Families who complete the online process will receive a unique 11-digit custom ID number to provide during the field visit.

“In such cases, the enumerator has to record the ID and ask only four supplementary questions. If self-counting has not been done, the enumerator will have to go through the entire process of asking all 33 questions, making the exercise much more time-consuming,” the official said.

The census of houses and flats will be followed by the population census phase.

Published – 26 Jun 2026 22:32 IST