PM Modi Hails Digital Census, Clean Energy Push

(MENAFN- Live Mint) NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday highlighted India's upcoming digital census and recent gains in clean energy and nuclear power, calling them key milestones in the country's development.

Speaking in his monthly radio address Mann Ki Baat, Modi said the fast breeder reactor at Kalpakkam, Tamil Nadu, built indigenously, has achieved criticality.“The Fast Breeder Reactor in Kalpakkam, Tamil Nadu, has achieved criticality. Actually, criticality is the stage during which a reactor successfully attains a self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction for the first time. This stage signifies the reactor entering the operational phase,” the Prime Minister said.

As of April 2026, India has an installed nuclear power capacity of 8.78 gigawatts across 25 operational reactors.

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Modi said India has added 6 GW of wind capacity in the last one year, taking total installed wind capacity to 56 GW. Overall renewable energy capacity, including wind, solar and hydro, reached 283.46 GW in FY26, as the country targets 500 GW by 2030.

On the 2027 Census, the world's largest population counting exercise, Modi said the exercise is the first fully digital census. The last census was in 2011.

While the enumerators going door-to-door will have a mobile app, and citizens can themselves feed their information and verify a special code with the census officials.

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Modi said that in states where self-enumeration has been completed, census staff have also begun enumerating households. House listing for approximately 12 million families has been completed so far.

Modi also referred to rising dairy exports, and said increased investment and technology adoption are helping Indian products meet global standards.

Modi also highlighted that a legislative amendment in 2017 removing bamboo from the 'tree' category has allowed several northeastern organisations and groups to make better and more bamboo products.

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Meanwhile, on the social media platform X, Modi said he was relieved to learn that US President Donald Trump was safe after a reported security incident at the White House Press Dinner. "Violence has no place in a democracy and must be unequivocally condemned,” he wrote in the post.

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