Punjab teachers to perform census duties as usual

ISLAMABAD: Punjab government on Saturday night reversed its earlier decision to withdraw assigned teachers from census duties when Provincial Census Commissioner (PCC) rushed back to Lahore for sensitising Chief Secretary that last moment withdrawal of teaching staff could pose threat to holding the census exercise.

Earlier, Punjab had withdrawn all its teachers from performing duties in the forthcoming population census, putting whole exercise at stake owing to non availability of enumerators in the biggest province of the country.

The Provincial Census Commissioner (PCC) Punjab Arif Anwar Baloch was scheduled to hold a meeting with Rawalpindi’s top administration on Saturday regarding arrangements of the census but after the issuance of circular by the provincial government he had to rush back to Lahore for holding meeting with chief secretary Punjab and other provincial secretaries for making request to reverse these orders with immediate effect.

The Chief Census Commissioner Asif Bajwa on Saturday night confirmed to The News that the assigned staff from Punjab would continue performing census duties and would be participating into training programme which would be kick-started from Monday (tomorrow).

Earlier, according to official instructions issued by Punjab’s government’s Additional Secretary (Gen) Administration, Rana Hassan Akhtar, the directives were issued to all CEOs of District Education Authorities Punjab stating that in supersession of all previous directions regarding Census duty 2017, it is to inform you that in the larger interest of cause of promotion of education and to relieve teachers from additional burden of non academic duties, it has been decided at a high level meeting that no teacher shall perform census duty nor get training already scheduled in this regard.

You are, therefore, directed to inform all concerned in your district immediately. Please ensure strict compliance of these instructions, the circular added.

Now it was commitment made by the provincial government that they would spare the assigned teaching staff to perform census duties.

Official spokesman of Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) said on Saturday that this issue had surfaced and they were making efforts to sort it out with Punjab authorities. He said that Punjab’s Provincial Census Commissioner was assigned to hold meeting with Chief Secretary Punjab and it was hoped that all issues would be resolved amicably.

Meanwhile, the important sub-committee constituted by Finance Minister Ishaq Dar under Chairperson Dr Zeba Sattar held its maiden meeting in Islamabad on Saturday in which the PBS high-ups briefed them about their preparation for holding the upcoming census in two phases starting from March 15, 2017 in selected divisions of all four provinces.

One member of the sub-committee told this correspondent after attending the meeting that this committee comprising of demographic experts was constituted to assist the PBS for holding census in smooth manner.

There were no alarm bells ringing in the meeting, however, preliminary discussions were held to undertake the census in a professional manner.

When asked about Punjab government decision to withdraw teachers from census duty, he said that these issues between central and provincial governments could be resolved amicably and it was hoped that the census exercise would not be delayed.