Govt bars any changes to village, municipal and Assembly limits till March 2027
PANAJI
Ahead of Census 2027, Goa government has announced freezing of boundaries of Municipalities, villages and Assembly constituencies from December 31, 2025 and will remain in force till March 31, 2027.
The Goan was the first to report about the decision that no further revisions to the boundaries of the administrative units will be undertaken after December 31.
“Any changes in the boundaries of existing municipalities, revenue villages, tehsils, sub-divisions and districts including those which may be taken up in the near future shall be finalised and given effect before December 31, 2025,” Director Planning Vijai Saxena said in a notification issued.
“The boundaries of administrative units for Census 2027 shall be frozen as on December 31, 2025,” he added.
This comes in the wake of directions from the Directorate of Census Operations (DCO) that announced a pause in the process to change the boundaries of districts, towns, villages and tehsils post December 31.
Goa will be going for five major elections – Zilla Panchayat, which is scheduled on December 13 and followed by municipal councils, municipal corporations, the State Assembly, and panchayat polls – due in 2026 and 2027. The Election authorities have already undertaken delimitation of ZP constituencies.
Saxena said that the reference date for population Census 2027 for the State of Goa is March 1, 2027 and will be conducted in two phases.
The first phase will be house-listing operations, which involve creating a comprehensive list of all buildings, structures, and housing units across the State, scheduled from April 1, 2026. The second phase will be the population enumeration – the headcount of the population – which will take place from February 2027 onwards.
The move is expected to have far-reaching implications on the political landscape, especially with the State government deciding to increase the number of wards in ‘A’ class municipalities from 25 to 27 and further eyeing to reserve assembly seats for Scheduled Tribe (ST) communities in Goa.
Registrar general and census commissioner of India, Mritunjay Kumar Narayan in a communication to Goa government earlier in July had said, “The states/ UTs should ensure that no changes should be made in the boundaries of administrative units between January 1, 2026, and March 31, 2027, during which Census exercise will take place. Any changes in the existing boundaries must be intimated to Census directorates in the states and UTs and Registrar General of India by December 31, 2025. For Census 2027, boundaries of administrative units will be frozen on December 31, 2025.”
Pre-test Census in Goa from Nov 10
PANAJI: The pre-test Census is set to commence from November 10 in Goa’s Corgao village in Pernem taluka and Margao municipal area in Salcete.
As per the notification issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs, the pre-test will be conducted from November 10 to November 30 in all States and Union Territories.
The self-enumeration will be allowed from November 1 to November 7.
As reported earlier, Directorate of Census Operations, Goa has identified Corgao village in Pernem taluka and Margao municipal area in Salcette, wherein almost 27 teachers and government servants would be roped in as enumerators and supervisors to carry out the enumeration.
The pre-test process will serve as a trial for testing and refining all aspects of the Census operations. The crucial exercise is being done for evaluating the proposed questions, data collection methodologies, training effectiveness, logistics, printing processes, data quality assessment, identifying potential field issues, etc.
