Census 2011 : House listing starts across Sindh today

The number of residential units will be counted till April 19.

HYDERABAD:

Census teams will start counting the number of residential units in Hyderabad  and other districts from today (Tuesday) and will work until April 19.

Hyderabad has been divided into five districts of the city’s four talukas: Hyderabad City, Latifabad, Qasimabad and Hyderabad Rural and the cantonment.

Assistant Census Commissioner Asif Saleem told The Express Tribune that each taluka had been further divided into blocks. The city would have 720 blocks - Latifabad was divided into 614 blocks, Qasimabad into 174 blocks, Hyderabad Rural comprised 357 blocks and Cantonment had 90.

This kind of a division would ensure that flood survivors and even those people who are living on encroached land would be counted, he explained. The residents of areas by the river would be counted in their blocks as well. Each block has around 200 to 250 housing units.

When the flood hit last year, at least 35 villages in the kachcha or riverine areas of Hyderabad were evacuated. The district government had estimated the population of these villages was around 25,000.

The assistant commissioner assured that flood survivors living in relief camps would also be counted because each hut, tent or accommodation of any kind in which a family lives, would be allotted a house number.

When asked why staff from the revenue and local government departments was being included in the census teams, Saleem clarified that, “95 per cent of the teams consisted of teachers”. Some employees from the revenue and local government departments had been hired because there were not enough teachers. “Nobody from the NGO sector has been included in the teams,” he added. A Hyderabad education department employee confirmed Saleem’s statement, saying that teachers were busy these days with primary and secondary level exams. “This might be why there was a shortage.”

However, Hyderabad Education EDO Niaz Laghari said that exams were not the issue. There might be other reasons but “this is a national cause and teachers understand the importance of a census very well.”

More than 1,300 teachers have been hired to carry out the house census in Hyderabad. They have been divided by the census staff structure of charge superintendent, circle supervisor and enumerator according to their basic pay scale (BPS) grades.

Around 550 teachers would work in the City, 450 in Latifabad, 110 in Qasimabad, 170 in Rural Hyderabad and 55 would carry out their duties in the cantonment. They would be paid according to their pay scales, except for the enumerators, who will get Rs3,000 for the 15-day assignment. Teachers in BPS-17 or above have been appointed as charge superintendents, BPS-16 teachers as circle supervisors, while those between BPS-6 to 12 have given made enumerators.” Laghari said that he had asked the government to pay the teachers for their services in advance but this hasn’t happened yet.

Hyderabad District Administrator Aftab Ahmed Khatri chaired a meeting with top officials of the revenue, education and police departments on Saturday. The district police have been asked to coordinate with the census staff and to respond to their complaints on time. The Education EDO has to ensure that reserve staff are on standby to deal with problems such as absenteeism.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 5^th,  2011.