The door-to-door house listing and housing census exercise commenced across Ghaziabad and Gautam Budh Nagar on Friday, covering an estimated 20 lakh households. Braving a blazing heatwave with temperatures hovering at 44 degrees Celsius, more than 13,000 enumerators fanned out across residential colonies and villages to carry out their duties for Census-2027.
The exercise involves door-to-door collection of details related to houses, household amenities, and occupancy status as part of the first phase. In Ghaziabad, the district has been divided into 7,848 house-listing blocks, with an estimated 11.77 lakh houses to be covered. Gautam Budh Nagar has been divided into 5,914 blocks, with around 8.87 lakh estimated houses.
Officials stated that over 8,000 enumerators in Ghaziabad and more than 5,000 in Gautam Budh Nagar began the field exercise on the first day of the month-long census operation, which will continue until June 20. Ghaziabad Additional District Magistrate Anjani Singh said, "Enumerators are required to visit every household in their assigned blocks, identify structures, prepare layout maps, and record responses digitally."
During the survey, officials mentioned that around 33 questions related to housing conditions and household amenities are being asked. These include details such as the condition and use of the house, number of rooms, availability of drinking water, electricity, toilets, cooking fuel, internet access, and ownership of assets. Officials clarified that residents are not required to submit or show any physical documents during the exercise.
Enumerators tasked with the house-listing exercise said they had to adapt their schedules to cope with the intense summer heat. Most field workers planned to conduct surveys during the relatively cooler hours of the day, primarily between 8 a.m. and 11 a.m. and later in the evening from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. "We are avoiding afternoon hours as the heat becomes unbearable. Most visits are being planned in the morning and evening so that residents are also available and the work can continue smoothly," said an enumerator deployed in Omicron-3 in Greater Noida.
On the first day, enumerators faced some resistance from residents who were not aware of the objective of the house census. "On the first day, some residents were hesitant to share details as they were unsure about the purpose of the exercise. But once we explained that the house-listing census is part of a socio-economic survey meant to help the government assess housing conditions and basic amenities, most people cooperated and shared the required information," said an enumerator deployed in the Bhatta Road area of Ghaziabad.
Officials warned that strict action would be taken under provisions of the Census Act, 1948, against personnel found absent, negligent, or delaying the work.
