PANAJI
In a first-of-its-kind initiative, over five lakh houses and buildings in Goa would be geo-tagged as part of Census 2027. The Digital Layout Mapping (DLM) of the buildings, residential and non-residential, will begin as part of House Listing Operations (HLO), scheduled from April 1, 2026 onwards.
This will be the first time such a large-scale digital mapping exercise is undertaken as part of the census. Officials say the census will, for the first time, classify buildings into categories such as residential, non-residential, partly residential, and landmark.
“The task of the supervisor or an enumerator, before starting the canvassing of schedule, is to visit every area within their blocks and ensure that they full understand the boundaries. This is to ensure that all buildings, census houses and households are covered without missing or repeating,” Joint Director of Census Operations, Goa, KVR Rao told The Goan.
Enumerators will geo-tag every building with its assigned House Listing Block (HLB), which is defined as “a well-defined area in a village or in a ward of the town which can be clearly demarcated on the ground and for which a notional map is drawn for the purpose of the Census Operations". Data will also be collected on the number of census houses and the households residing in each building.
Rao said that until now, census officials relied on hand-drawn notional sketches to record house listing details and often lacked the details needed for future use. He emphasized that such a system will virtually eliminate duplication, reduce errors and provide a transparent record of the housing stock in both rural and urban Goa.
“Now, with the introduction of the DLM app, these maps will be created digitally with more precision, efficiency and also help in creating geo-referenced data of buildings and landmarks,” he explained.
As per the Census guidelines, the objective of house listing is to identify any structure where human beings can live. Hence, officials said that the structures such as pump houses, temples, grain stores, temporary huts built in the fields and other similar structures in which people can reside would be geo-tagged.
According to the 2011 Census, Goa has 343,611 total households, with 124,674 located in rural areas. The Economic Survey of Goa 2024-25, which was made public by the government, has projected Goa’s population to be approximately 15.96 lakh from 14.5 lakh reported in 2011. It also projects that the total households must have crossed the five lakh mark.
