Govt fixes census portal map glitch that showed Arunachal’s Pasighat as Chinese town Medog

The Registrar General of India on Saturday said a mapping error on the census self-enumeration portal that showed Pasighat as the Chinese town Medog has been rectified after being flagged online .

The issue surfaced during the self-enumeration process for the upcoming digital census on the official portal se.census.gov.in , where users confirm their address through an integrated map interface. During the process, the map incorrectly labelled Pasighat in East Siang district as Medog, a town located across the India-China border.

The discrepancy was first highlighted on X by Mohonto Panging Pao (@MontyPanging), a retired Indian Air Force officer, who posted screenshots showing the map marker identifying the Arunachal town as “Medog”. In his post, he wrote that Medog is located in China and called for urgent intervention, tagging government authorities and raising concerns about territorial accuracy on an official portal.

Responding later in the evening, the census authorities said the matter had been taken up with the map services provider and fixed . In a statement posted on X, officials said the issue related to the map location in Pasighat during self-enumeration had been raised with the service provider and subsequently resolved.

The incident also sparked discussion about the reliability of mapping systems used on government platforms , with Indian mapping company MapmyIndia highlighting the need for sovereign geographic data sources for sensitive applications.

The 15-day self-enumeration window for the census opened on April 16 for Arunachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Haryana and Chandigarh. Citizens can fill out census details online and generate a special identification number to present to enumerators during verification visits.

After the self-enumeration phase ends, enumerators will begin field visits for the houselisting and housing census , which will continue for about a month as notified by the states.

The upcoming census will be the eighth national census since Independence and will be conducted in two phases. The first phase, the houselisting and housing census, records all structures, houses and households across the country to prepare a framework for the population enumeration.

For the first time, the exercise will be fully digital , with enumerators using a dedicated mobile application to collect data. During houselisting operations, officials will visit each building and ask 33 questions related to housing facilities, ownership status and details of the head of the household .

The second phase, the population census , which will involve a nationwide headcount, is scheduled to begin next year.