ISLAMABAD: While unveiling the plan to start the population census in 63 selected districts across Pakistan from today (Saturday) in phase one, Chief Census Commissioner (CCC) Asif Bajwa said that as a matter of principle, no area would be left out without house listing and 10 percent additional staff of enumerators could be deputed to ensure 100 percent coverage in all parts of the country.
“There is no option to extend the timeframe of house listing in any area of Pakistan, including Karachi, because of the tight schedule. However, additional staff can be deputed to ensure full coverage as three days meant for house listing will end on Friday evening. As a matter of principle, no area will be left out without house listing or counting the population,” Chief Census Commissioner Asif Bajwa said in a news conference here at the PBS headquarters on Friday.
He said that all those residing in Pakistan, whether legal or illegal on the Census Reference Day i.e. March 18, 2017 today (Saturday) would be counted in the census exercise. He said that after receiving instructions from the Supreme Court of Pakistan, the enumerators were instructed to insert disabled male, female and transgender related information in the survey would be done to get information for form-2A in order to get detailed information such as exact nature of disability, fertility rate, migration and unemployment related data would be collected after completion of population census.
Flanked by Statistics Division Secretary Dr Shujat Ali and other top guns of PBS, Mr Bajwa said that the provisional summary results of the ongoing census exercise would be completed after 60 days of completion of census in two phased exercise which would be ended on May 25, 2017.
When asked about compilation of provisional summary results till July 4, 2017, he said that the results would be compiled after 60 days of completion of exercise. Statistics Division Secretary Dr Shujat said that one enumerator Abdul Qadir belonged to Manshera district died because of road accident and some other staff got injured while performing duty for this national cause. He said that the phase of house listing completed on Friday and the phase of counting population would be kick-started from today (Saturday).
PBS Chief Asif Bajwa said that they received some complaints especially in the context of Karachi and they issued instructions to both civil and military enumerators deputed at each block to address these complaints. The PBS distributed whole country into 168,372 blocks.
He explained that two storey building would be given one house listing number but on eve of counting population if two separate families were residing, all would be counted. In case of multi-storey buildings then every flat will be included in house listing.
He said that instructions were given that it was not allowed to fill the census forms with lead pencils. “For counter check, the Army personnel have been given instructions,” he added. He said that the Council of Common Interest (CCI) had taken decision to meet population census cost through cost sharing basis among the Center and provinces exactly on the basis of formula for distribution of resources among the federal and four provincial governments.
The total cost of census exercise, he said, was estimated at Rs18.5 billion out of which Rs6 billion would be given to army, Rs6 billion to civilian staff and remaining Rs6 billion for logistic support of both Army and civilian side.
When asked about demand of increasing number of blocks, he said that existing blocks were sufficient but administrative adjustments could be made in special cases as the blocks were devised on the basis of 2015 information but after getting images through satellite, additional staff could be assigned to ensure coverage.
When asked why the demand of provinces could not be met by sharing house listing data collected on daily basis, Mr Bajwa replied that there was no data processing center available to enumerators so they would collect the data on manual basis and then dispatch them through sealed register to main headquarters.
He said that the census exercise was underway at Orakzai Agency in phase one and this exercise would be done in remaining agencies in the second phase which would kick start from April 26.