India will collect caste data as a separate exercise from the month of June 2011. The exercise will be completed in a phased manner by September 2011 after the Population Enumeration phase (to be conducted in February-March 2011) of the Census 2011 is over.

Indian Govt is constituting an Expert Group to classify the caste and tribe returns after the enumeration is completed. The Office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner India would hand over the details of the castes and tribes returned in the enumeration to the proposed Expert Group.

India had given up Caste based surveys as a matter of policy after independence. The last Census when caste-wise data was collected, tabulated and published in detail was the 1931 Census.