Consistent data: Army enumerator to accompany census team

First phase of population census will start from lower Sindh

KARACHI: In a bid to ensure transparency and overcome discrepancy in census data, enumerators of the armed forces will also conduct the house listing and census exercise, which is scheduled to begin on March 15.

Sources privy to the development told The Express Tribune that an “enumerator” of Pakistan Army will also join the civilian team of the sixth census in order to fill a separate form for house listing and census.

“We have issued special forms to the army with the same information that will be available with our enumerators,” a senior official in the Bureau of Statistics said, adding, “Two census blocks [each block comprises 200 to 250 houses] will be covered by one civilian enumerator who will be escorted by two policemen and one army personnel.”

With the induction of the armed forces enumerators, the number of team members will stand at five in each block.

Talking to The Express Tribune from Islamabad, Bureau of Statistics spokesperson Habibullah Khan said: “The induction of army enumerators is meant to overcome discrepancies and reduce grievances of people.”

“At the end of the day, civilian and army enumerators will tally their data. If there is any confusion or inconsistency, they will revisit the block. The data of a particular block will not be finalised until or unless figures of both the enumerators have been matched,” Khan said.

According to provincial census officials, each block will be completed in 14 days. Three days have been fixed for house counting and 10 days for collecting information about family members which is called ‘census’.

Meanwhile, one day will be fixed for the homeless population.

The process will be divided into blocks, census circles and census charge. Each block will have a maximum 250 houses, while a census circle comprises five to seven blocks or 1,500 houses on an average. Regarding the census charge, officials said, it will comprise five to seven census circles.

In all, there will be 931 census charges, 5,120 circles, 38,634 blocks and 44,685 census areas in Sindh. For this, around 27,905 staff members, including 19,317 enumerators, 5,120 supervisors and 931 superintendents, will be deployed to conduct the census.

According to provincial census commissioner Aleem Memon, in the first phase house listing and census will be started from lower Sindh, including Karachi and Hyderabad, while the second phase will start within a 10-day gap.

Official sources said during a high-level meeting held at V Corps three days ago police officials had expressed their inability to provide two policemen with each enumerator because of the shortage of manpower.

“The DIG South said that it will be difficult for them to provide two policemen. Moreover, he suggested census officials to consult IG on the issue,” the sources said.

On the other hand, Senior Minister for Parliamentary Affairs and Food Nisar Ahmed Khuhro said that it would not be possible to list down houses in three days and finish the entire exercise in 14 days.

“We have already expressed our grievances over the condition of the national identity card. One CNIC of a family is mandatory to prove their identity,” he said.

“More than 30% of the population in Sindh do not have CNICs. We have asked Nadra and federal government authorities to expedite the process of making cards, but all in vain,” he remarked.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 27^th, 2017.