Forms to stay in army’s custody

PESHAWAR: The Pakistan Army and the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics mutually decided on Tuesday to keep the census forms under the army’s supervision.

Officials at the bureau, while talking to The Express Tribune, claimed that the decision was taken to ensure transparency after the army’s insistence.

“Enumerators have been asked to hand over the forms after their duty timings, and collect them the next morning,” an official claimed. The form that would contain data of families in a block would not be left with the enumerators to avoid any likely manipulation.



A senior official of the bureau, who claimed to be present at the divisional level meetings, said a total of Rs14 billion had been released to the provinces while the remaining Rs4 billion would be released for the second phase.

The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) government, on the other hand, has released Rs525 million for over 16,000 cops who will perform their duties during the census that will continue from March 15 till April 15.

Besides, vehicles have been hired for every division that will be used for 35 days.



The official said 900 vehicles were booked for the Peshawar division while 838 for the Kohat division to ferry the staff and personnel of security agencies to urban and rural localities. The bureau has placed district Shangla in the second phase due to snowfall over there.

Talking to The Express Tribune, an official of the local government department, said, “Around Rs4 million have been released for stationery expenses, however, we have requested K-P’s finance department to deal with the expenditures for the census.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 15^th, 2017.