IAS Officer Sonal Swaroop Given Additional Census Charge for Arunachal Pradesh and Meghalaya

Sonal Swaroop, a 2012-batch IAS officer of the AGMUT cadre, has been assigned additional charge as Director of Census Operations and Director of Citizen Registration for both Arunachal Pradesh and Meghalaya, an appointment made under the Central Staffing Scheme for a three-year period beginning from the date she assumes charge.

Directors of Census Operations function under the Office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India, coordinating decennial Census enumeration, civil registration of births and deaths, and maintenance of the National Population Register within their assigned states, a role that carries dual reporting lines between the state administration and the central Census organisation given the position's hybrid state-central character.

Assigning one officer additional charge across two states, Arunachal Pradesh and Meghalaya, rather than appointing separate directors for each, reflects a staffing approach the Census organisation has used in smaller north-eastern states where the administrative scale does not always justify a dedicated officer for each state's directorate, allowing available AGMUT-cadre officers to cover multiple jurisdictions simultaneously.

Both states present distinct enumeration challenges given their hill terrain, dispersed tribal populations, and, in parts of Arunachal Pradesh, areas requiring special administrative and security coordination for enumeration staff to access, factors that make experienced administrative leadership at the DCO level particularly significant for ensuring enumeration completeness in the region ahead of the next full Census cycle.

The three-year tenure length gives Swaroop a defined horizon to oversee both routine civil registration functions, which operate continuously, and the more intensive preparatory work that typically precedes a decennial Census enumeration, including enumerator recruitment, training, and jurisdictional boundary verification across both states.

The appointment order was issued jointly by the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India.