What happens if you were not counted before the cut-off date?

Being missed by the census and arriving after the cut-off date are different things. If you were living or farming there before the cut-off and the enumerators simply did not record you, you remain eligible and the register should be corrected. If you built or planted after a properly disclosed cut-off, you are not eligible for that asset — though you may still be entitled to notice and assistance.

The distinction that decides it

The cut-off date exists to stop speculative building once a project becomes known, which is a real problem and the reason the rule is enforced.[1] It is not intended to exclude people who were always there and were overlooked — enumeration misses people routinely, particularly tenants, absentee owners, women with claims recorded under a male relative, and traders working hours the survey never covered.

Not on the list is a fact about the survey. It is not a finding about whether you were there.

If you were missed

1. Raise it immediately through the grievance mechanism, and get a reference number. Do not wait for payment day.
2. Assemble evidence of presence before the cut-off — neighbours who are on the register, local authority attestation, a tenancy record, receipts, photographs, planted trees whose age can be judged, school or health records showing residence.
3. Ask when the draft register is displayed publicly. That display, with its objection period, is exactly the mechanism for this, and it should happen before any payments are made.[3]
4. Ask to be assessed, in writing. A verbal refusal at a field desk is not a determination.

If the cut-off was never properly disclosed

A cut-off date can only be applied against people who were told about it. A date fixed internally, never announced in the settlements affected, never published in the local language, and then used to refuse a claim will not survive a grievance — and correctly so.[2]

So the first question to ask is when and how the date was disclosed, and what evidence the project holds of that disclosure. Projects are required to keep it.

If you did arrive afterwards

Ineligible for compensation for the asset is not the same as entitled to nothing. Anyone occupying land the project needs is entitled to adequate notice, to time to remove their belongings and salvageable materials, and — if they have nowhere to go — to assistance rather than simply being cleared.[4] Vulnerable households in this position need assistance regardless of the date they arrived.