The High‑Level Committee on Demographic Changes (HLCDC), set up by the Ministry of Home Affairs on 26 May, has sent a 35‑point questionnaire to all state governments. The questionnaire asks for detailed demographic data covering the past 15 years, including district‑wise and religion‑wise breakdowns of birth registrations, school enrolments, ration cards, vehicle registrations, property transactions and voter registrations. It also requests information on unusual spikes in Aadhaar enrolments, voter IDs and ration cards, as well as cases of forged identity documents.
State officials have expressed that much of the requested information does not exist in the form asked for. Administrative databases typically do not record citizens’ religion across many categories, making it difficult to generate 15‑year, religion‑wise and district‑wise datasets for transport, property and social services. The committee’s demand for such granular data on vehicles, ration cards and school enrolments is therefore seen as a significant challenge for state departments.
The HLCDC is chaired by retired Supreme Court judge Prakash Prabhakar Naolekar and has a one‑year deadline to submit its report, extendable by up to six months. Its mandate is to study demographic changes resulting from illegal immigration and other “abnormal” factors, recommend measures to address them, and propose an institutional mechanism for population stabilisation. The committee has already visited Jammu and Kashmir and plans a visit to Maharashtra, but responses from many state governments remain pending.
The exercise follows Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s announcement in August 2025 of a High‑Power Demography Mission, which he said was needed to counter a perceived “conspiracy” altering the country’s demographic profile. Earlier, a similar proposal had been floated in 2024, and the lack of a census since 2011 has left policymakers without recent district‑level data. While the committee’s focus is on migration and abnormal demographic shifts rather than socio‑economic status, it is part of a broader policy trend that has historically sparked debate over the collection of religion‑specific administrative data in India.
