Registrar General of India
Also called: RGI, Registrar General and Census Commissioner · Topic: Statutory, Regulatory and Quasi-judicial Bodies · NCERT: Beyond NCERT
Meaning
The Registrar General of India (RGI) is a Union government office under the Ministry of Home Affairs. It runs the Census, which is the count of every person in the country. The Census is held under the Census Act, 1948, and "Census" is Entry 69 of the Union List, so it is a Union subject. The same officer also holds the post of Census Commissioner. The office runs the Sample Registration System (a regular survey of births and deaths) and oversees the registration of births and deaths. The work is done in the States through Directors of Census Operations. It matters because Census data is used for delimitation (redrawing constituencies and seat shares), for reservation policy and for targeting welfare schemes.
Example
On 30 October 2026, the RGI and Census Commissioner, Mritunjay Kumar Narayan, issued a notice for the second phase of Census 2027. Door-to-door counting would run from 25 January to 28 February 2027. Census 2027 is India's first digital Census, and the first since 1931 to count castes other than SC and ST.
Don't confuse with
- MoSPI / National Statistics Office (NSO): they run sample surveys. They do not conduct the Census, which belongs to the RGI under the Home Ministry.
- Socio-Economic and Caste Census (SECC) 2011: it was held outside the Census Act. The caste count in Census 2027 is done under the Census Act.