Union Minister for Minority Affairs Shri Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi has informed that Government notifies the minorities as per Section 2(c) of the National Commission for Minorities Act, 1992, and the Central Government has so far notified six communities as minority communities namely Christians, Sikhs, Muslims, Buddhists, Parsis and Jains.
The term “Minority” is not used in Census. However, data on all religions as reported by the people of India are collected in each Census. The last Census was conducted in 2011 and the Population of Sikh, Christian, Jain, Buddhist and Muslim of India (including Chhattisgarh) as per Census 2011 is given below:
| Sikh | Christian | Jain | Buddhist | Muslim |
| 20,833,116 | 27,819,588 | 4,451,753 | 8,442,972 | 172,245,158 |
The Census data is also available online at www.censusindia.gov.in and the specific data can be accessed from the link https://censusindia.gov.in/2011census/Religion_PCA.html. .