West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari announced on Friday, 29 May that the national census exercise in the state will commence from 1 August and run through February next year, blaming the previous Mamata Banerjee-led government for a prolonged delay that has left West Bengal trailing other states. The announcement came after an emergency meeting chaired by the Chief Minister at the state secretariat, Nabanna, in Kolkata.

Why West Bengal Fell Behind

Adhikari stated that the Union Government had dispatched a communique to the previous state administration in February last year, directing it to initiate the census process. According to the Chief Minister, the then state Cabinet neither acted on the directive nor acknowledged it. 'The previous state government did not start the work because of narrow political reasons. The previous Chief Secretary was waiting for a political consensus on the matter,' Adhikari told reporters after the meeting.

He added that the inaction had caused West Bengal to lag behind other states, describing the delay as a failure of constitutional duty. This is a pointed charge: the census is a decennial constitutional obligation, and a state's refusal to engage with preparatory groundwork is, critics argue, without precedent in recent federal history.

New Government's Response

Adhikari said the new state government moved swiftly after taking charge. 'In our first Cabinet meeting on 11 May, we decided to start the census exercise in the state at the earliest,' he said. The exercise is now scheduled to begin on 1 August and continue until February next year, covering the full enumeration cycle.

Notably, the Chief Minister indicated that the current government is working to bridge the gap with other states as quickly as possible, framing the accelerated timeline as a corrective measure rather than a routine rollout.

Digital Census Operations

A significant feature of this round of enumeration is its fully digital format. Census officials will collect household data on mobile phones through a dedicated application to be launched ahead of the exercise. 'The collected data will be uploaded to the central server through that app,' Adhikari said. This aligns with the national push toward a paperless census, which had already been piloted in several other states.

Border Demographics and the Census Link

Adhikari also raised the issue of demographic change in West Bengal's border regions, linking it to what he described as illegal infiltration from Bangladesh. He stated that over 500 kilometres of the state's border with Bangladesh currently lacks barbed-wire fencing, which he said had contributed to significant demographic shifts in those areas.

'That is precisely why the census is very important for West Bengal, although there is no official link between the census and illegal infiltration,' he clarified, drawing a distinction between the constitutional exercise and the political question of border security. The remarks are likely to sharpen the political debate around the census, which has already been contentious nationally.

What Comes Next

With the 1 August start date confirmed, state machinery is expected to be mobilised over the coming weeks for training census officials and deploying the mobile application. The full enumeration is set to conclude by February, after which data will be processed and submitted to the Union Government. How quickly West Bengal can close the gap with states that began earlier remains to be seen.