Census 2017: Smooth sailing for enumerators on day one

House counting commences simultaneously in 14 places across the city

ISLAMABAD: The sixth population and housing census began in the capital on Tuesday.

The exercise began with the three-day house listing operation, which would be followed by head count activity from April 28.

Chief Census Commissioner Asif Bajwa inaugurated the drive in the capital.

Additional Deputy Commissioner Abdul Sattar Isani said that head counting activities were conducted peacefully and smoothly in the capital on Tuesday.

He added that the house listing operation had simultaneously started at 14 places in the capital’s urban and rural areas.

As many as 652 teams, each team consisting of a civilian and a military official, are taking part in the exercise in the city.

Isani further said that sufficient security arrangements had been made for the census teams and that the police, Rangers, Frontier Constabulary, and the army were jointly handling the responsibility of providing security to census teams.

Moreover, there were four superintendents each, from the civilian and the military sides, who are supervising census activity in the capital.

The additional deputy commissioner said a majority of the civilian enumerators were from the education department.

In this regard, an education official said that every enumerator was being paid around Rs1,000 per day in addition to their regular pay for carrying out census duties.

The census activities would continue until May 25 in the capital.

Tight security

Meanwhile, the police said they had put in place an elaborate security plan for the capital which included deployment of around 1500 law-enforcement officials who were patrolling the streets and checking suspects.

A police spokesperson said that security officials were accompanying each census team as they carried out their duties.

He added that the police were making sure they kept in contact with census supervisors.

As many as four superintendents, 11 deputy superintendents and 21 Inspectors were supervising security arrangements for the census campaign while 10 police officials would be deployed with each SDPO and SHO.

There were 135 circular supervisors and 14 in-charges would carry out the census process.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 26^th, 2017.