Census chief says exercise to go ahead despite law and order issues

ISLAMABAD: In the wake of recent terrorist attacks just ahead of scheduled upcoming population census, Pakistan’s Chief Census Commissioner Asif Bajwa said that the government was committed to control overall security environment, however, in case of acute disturbance, adjustments could be made in the census operation without changing overall timeframe of the two phased exercise.

The overall cost of the population census would be doubled as original cost stood at Rs14.5 billion which would now go up to Rs30 billion mainly because the armed forces are going to spare up to 200,000 soldiers to supervise the census as well as to provide foolproof security to the whole exercise.

“There is no Plan-B in the minds of government as it is fully determined to control the situation. Army has launched an aggressive offensive against militants.

However, in case of increased disturbance on the eve of the census, the phase one districts could be adjusted in second phase within the specified timeframe starting from March 15 and ending on May 25, 2017.

This cushion can be used for making adjustments,” Asif Bajwa told in a press briefing arranged by the PBS here on Saturday.

He said they could not predict the security situation would escalate or de-escalate in the coming days but they were fully prepared to hit the ground for holding this important exercise from March 15, 2017.

Flanked by Secretary Statistics Division Dr Shujaat Ali and other high-ups, Asif Bajwa said that in order to give credibility to the census exercise, the Army deputed 42,000 soldiers along with enumerators who would go into the each block and fill their own 786 forms.

The form filled by civilian enumerator and Army enumerator will be reconciled in order to ensure authenticity and reliability of the collected data.

He said that the overall estimated cost of population census would be standing at Rs30 billion as the per head cost of this exercise would be hovering around $1.5 or Rs150 per person against Rs12 per person incurred for the last census held in 1998.

For last census held in 1998, the Pakistan Army had borne all expenditures from its own allocated budget but this time their cost had gone up from earlier allocated amount of Rs7.4 billion to around Rs22 billion. 

Giving justification for cost escalation, he said that the Army would mobilise its reserved force for which transportation and mobility cost as well as allowances payment will increase.

He said the upcoming census declared March 18, 2017 as Reference Census Day as all those would be counted in the upcoming census who would born or live till that day.

If new born baby comes into this world on March 19, 2017 he or she will not be counted in the census.

Asif Bajwa said there are total 168,120 blocks all over the country and each civilian enumerator has been assigned two blocks to collect data.

Although, he said, 42.5 million forms having barcode were printed and available with the PBS but they had given orders to print more forms up to 55 million which could be sufficient to count over 300 million population.

He said the software installed at headquarters of PBS were well tested where the whole census data would be stored.

He said the tenders for obtaining backup scanners were floated and PPRA Rules would be strictly followed in all procurements. He said although there was no column in the printed form for collecting data for eunuchs, but the census form 2 would insert information into the column of sex where male, female or third category transgender will be included. 

During technical briefing, the PBS high-ups told the media that they proposed to Law Division to provide magistrate powers to supervisors of enumerating staff who could announce penalty up to Rs50,000 and six months imprisonment on site if someone was found providing wrong information to census enumerators.

They said that they informed the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) that they could provide census summary results to them after 60 days of completion of census exercise but the ECP authorities had not yet informed them whether they could do delimitation exercise or not.

Regarding counting of Afghan refugees, the PBS high-ups said they would count everyone present in the country.

However, Bajwa said Nadra had so far cancelled around 0.4 to 0.5 million fake CNICs of Afghan nationals so they would get data from them to put them into category of other nationals.

To another query about sharing of information about Osama bin Laden by Abbottabad Commission, Asif Bajwa said the commission had accepted the position taken by the PBS that they could not provide any personal information to anyone under the law of the land.

He said that it was decided to exclude migration, disability, unemployment and mortality as well as fertility related sample survey from the census exercise because of non-availability of required armed forces for longer period.