Sixth national census to begin in March

Army has been enlisted for security, credibility purposes.

KARACHI: The sixth census of Pakistan will start from March this year for which all the preparations have been finalised. The preparations were started earlier in October last year but were postponed due to a law and order situation in the tribal areas and the army’s engagement in some areas of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.

The census is the largest field exercise that will involve 175,000 workers, about one for every 1,000 people, and will be conducted in two phases commencing March 2011. While the house listing operation will be carried out in March and April, the population and housing census will be conducted in August and September.

The country has been divided into 423 districts for the information gathering exercise. Khizar Hayat Khan, census commissioner of economic affairs and statistics division has written a letter to the chief secretaries of all four provinces, advising them to make arrangements for the census at the earliest.

Meanwhile, over 28,000 personnel of the armed forces, under seven brigadiers and over 500 colonels, majors and captains, will also take part in the exercise “for security reasons and to improve credibility of the census information,” according to a press statement from the office of the chief census commissioner.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 12^th, 2011.