New Delhi: All is not well with the Census 2027 form as autism, thalassemia or sickle cell disease are not listed as conditions in it. Neither does the form account for more than one disability, or with a condition that does not fit the nine options the government has printed in the form.
The disability section of the form, reviewed by ThePrint on the Census self-enumeration portal, leaves out two of the six broad categories recognised under the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (RPwD) Act, 2016. This is the first census since the Act came into force. The portal went live this week for snow-bound and non-synchronous areas, where the Population Enumeration is being held ahead of the February 2027 nationwide round, with 1 October, 2026 as the reference date.
The 2011 Census listed eight disabilities. This time, there are nine. Six have been carried over, with ‘mental retardation’ renamed ‘intellectual disability’, and three added: acid attack, blood disorder and chronic neurological condition. There is no ‘multiple disability’ option and no ‘any other’ field, both of which are in the RPwD schedule.
The RPwD Act expanded the recognised list from seven disabilities to 21, grouped under six heads: physical, covering locomotor, visual, hearing and speech; intellectual disability, covering specific learning disabilities and autism; mental illness; disability caused by chronic neurological conditions and blood disorders; multiple disability; and any other.
At the launch of a disability handbook for parliamentarians in March, Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment Ramdas Athawale called Census 2027 an opportunity to recognise all 21 categories “through trained enumeration and vastly improved data collection”. A 2026 Parliamentary Standing Committee had asked the Registrar General of India (RGI) and the Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities (DEPwD) to jointly ensure the census counted all 21.
The DEPwD wrote to the RGI more than once, under successive secretaries, seeking a consultation on which disabilities the form should capture, according to people aware of the correspondence. No response came. A senior official aware of the matter said the disability sector had even carried a letter to a meeting in Goa to press the case. “Nobody came,” the official, who did not want to be named, said. The issue began to move only after a civil servant turned up, heard the argument and took it forward. Through the exercise, officials said, the RGI held the process close and told those who raised the matter that it was not its mandate.
The government used the broad RPwD heads but not all of them, disability lawyer Shashank Pandey said. “Even if we take the argument that they have taken broad category, the last two are missing.” A respondent can choose up to three disabilities, which could be read as multiple disability, “but still any other option is not there”, he said.
The form assumes a knowledge most respondents do not have, Pandey said. “There is a presumption of the government and the RGI that people know the category under which they fall,” he said. “A majority, 99 percent people don’t know under which category they fall, especially if they are anything except physical.”
Autism falls under intellectual disability, and thalassemia and sickle cell under blood disorder, but none of those umbrella terms appears on the Unique Disability ID card, which records only the specific condition. “The certificate that people possess doesn’t mention the broad category, it mentions the specific condition, and people know that only,” Pandey said. If an enumerator reads out heads that do not match the card, he said, many will not answer. “People think it’s better to not tell than tell false data. So you are just creating another set of barrier.”
Listing acid attack on its own made little sense, Pandey said, as it is already a physical disability under the Act. “Acid attack in itself is a disability within physical category. So why did you create an exception for acid attack? It’s not logical,” he said, linking it to a recent Supreme Court direction on rehabilitating survivors.
The census gives sickle cell no separate line, even as the Centre runs a national sickle cell anaemia elimination mission. “How would you know what is the target population you are catering to in your scheme when you are not counting the disability itself?” Pandey said.
All 21 disabilities are still covered, a senior official aware of the matter said, because the broad heads take them in. Blood disorder covers haemophilia, thalassemia and sickle cell, and chronic neurological condition covers its own sub-types. “All 21 disabilities have been covered in this,” he said. What would be lost was the finest detail. “If somebody wants to be counted as a person with sickle cell, that won’t happen,” he said, though the umbrella category would register.
The absence of a multiple-disability head was a likely conscious choice by the RGI, the official said, noting that a respondent can tick up to three of the nine boxes. The same sub-category recorded twice would not amount to multiple disability in any case, he said, adding that in two decades in the sector he had “not seen a person with more than three disabilities”.
The 2011 Census put persons with disabilities at 2.21 percent of the population, about 2.68 crore, a figure disability groups have long called an undercount.
ThePrint has reached the Office of the Registrar General of India via email for a comment. This report will be updated when a response is received.
(Edited by Nardeep Singh Dahiya)
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