The Census Rules, 1990 is a set of subordinate legislation, specifically Rules, framed by the Central Government of India. It was created on December 31, 1990, and came into force upon its publication in the Official Gazette. The Rules were enacted under the authority granted by sub-section (1) of Section 18 of the parent law, the Census Act, 1948 (Act No. 37 of 1948).
The Rules provide the detailed administrative and procedural mechanism for conducting the decennial population census in India, thereby operationalizing the broad mandate of the Census Act, 1948. Key provisions outline the appointment and functions of various Census Officers, such as the Principal Census Officer, who is responsible for appointing District or Sub-Divisional Census Officers and arranging for the training of Enumerators and Supervisors (Rule 5(3)). The Rules also govern the custody and preservation of the canvassed census schedules after the data collection is complete (Rule 9).
The Rules are intrinsically connected to the Census Act, 1948, which empowers the Central Government to take the census (Section 3) and legally binds every person to answer the questions asked by a census officer (Section 8).
The Rules have been recently amended by the Census (Amendment) Rules, 2022. This amendment introduced a significant change by allowing for "self-enumeration" and the use of "electronic form" for filling the census schedule (Rule 6G). While the traditional method of home visits by enumerators remains, the amendment modernized the process by including "electronic media" and "social media" in Rule 8 for wider publicity of the census. Additionally, Rule 5 was updated to allow the publishing of census statistics through "electronic or any other media".