National census coordination meeting held at Mangla

ISLAMABAD: A coordination meeting for Pakistan Army’s support for the 6th national population census was held at Mangla Saturday.

Attendees of the meeting that included Corps Commander Mangla Lieutenant General Umar Farooq Durrani, representatives of the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics and Civil Administration jointly reviewed preparations for the census and expressed their satisfaction on the implementation plans.

Corps Commander Mangla assured members of the Civil Administration of complete support from the Pakistan Army for the smooth execution of the census.

The national population census, which is scheduled to begin on March 15, will engage 200,000 army personnel and 91,000 civilian enumerators will cost the exchequer over Rs 14 billion.

The first four censuses were duly conducted in the years 1951, 1961, 1972 and 1981. There was a gap of 17 years after which the fifth census took place in 1998.

According to the approved minutes of the Council of Common Interests (CCI), a copy of which is available with The News, “after detailed discussion, the CCI approved the following proposals submitted by the Statistics Division/Pakistan Bureau of Statistics in their summary dated 8th December, 2016 :

a) Census may be held on traditional method using paper based questionnaires starting from 15 March, 2017 as per field operation plan given by Statistics Division.

b) House Listing and Census Operation may be carried out in one go. Form-2 only may be used in the Census Operation, while Form 2-A may be filled in on sample basis, after the Census Operation is over.

c) Census may be held in two phases, each phase may be carried out in all the provinces simultaneously.

d) All relevant stakeholders at Federal and Provincial level may be directed to extend cooperation to PBS during Census Operation”.  However, he said the government had prepared a plan to accomplish the exercise in a phased manner.

The entire Balochistan province will be covered in Phase One while the remaining provinces i.e. Fata, AJK and Gilgit Baltistan will be part of Phase Two.

Peshawar and Mardan divisions of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa will be part of Phase One under which 2,184 and 1,305 enumerators will acquire and record housing and population information under Pakistan Army’s supervision.

The government identified Lahore, Faisalabad, Sargodha and Dera Ghazi Khan from Punjab for phase one under which 6,825, 5,519, 3,457 and 4,196 enumerators will be deputed for each division respectively.

For the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT), the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) has assigned 639 enumerators for coverage of 1,278 blocks to undertake the population census exercise under Phase One.

The government has selected Karachi, Hyderabad and Mirpurkhas from Sindh for Phase One under which it has deputed 7,118, 4,461, and 1,365 enumerators respectively. The government has selected Quetta, Zhob, Sibi, Naseerabad, Kalat, and Markan from Balochistan in the first phase of the upcoming population census exercise by deputing 1,064, 649, 579, 540, 1,690, and 429 enumerators respectively.