Amit Shah unveils ‘Pragati’ and ‘Vikas’ mascots for India’s first digital Census

Union Home Minister Amit Shah on March 6 unveiled two mascots, ‘Pragati’ and ‘Vikas’, for India’s upcoming digital census while also launching four technology platforms aimed at modernising the nationwide enumeration exercise.

The mascots were introduced as symbolic representatives of census enumerators, with Pragati depicting a female enumerator and Vikas a male enumerator.

According to the Union Home Ministry, the characters are meant to represent the equal participation of women and men in the country’s development journey and help communicate the objectives of the census in a citizen-friendly manner.

The launch comes as India prepares to conduct its first fully digital census, a major shift from the traditional paper-based data collection methods used in previous population counts.

Officials said the upcoming census will rely on digital tools, mobile applications and online platforms to improve efficiency, accuracy and monitoring of the massive exercise.

Alongside the mascots, the government introduced four digital platforms developed by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing to support census operations across the country.

These include the Houselisting Block Creator (HLBC) web application, which uses satellite imagery to help officials digitally create houselisting blocks; the HLO mobile application, a secure offline app that allows enumerators to collect and upload housing data using smartphones; the Self-Enumeration portal, which will enable households to submit their information online before door-to-door surveys begin; and the Census Management and Monitoring System (CMMS) portal for real-time monitoring of census activities.

Officials said the self-enumeration option will be introduced for the first time in India’s census history, allowing citizens to provide household information online in advance. Enumerators will then verify the details during field visits.

The nationwide census exercise will be conducted in two phases, beginning with the houselisting and housing census followed by population enumeration that will capture demographic, social and economic data of every individual in the country.

Authorities said more than three million enumerators, supervisors and other officials will be deployed across the country for the exercise, making it one of the largest administrative data-collection efforts in the world.

The digital census initiative is part of the government’s broader effort to modernise data collection and ensure faster processing of population data while maintaining comprehensive nationwide coverage.