Using a pencil can cost you Rs20,000 or six months in jail, warns census chief

Commissioner says they have details of enumerators who violated the rules.

KARACHI:

All those enumerators who used pencils to fill out forms during the census can face up to six months in jail and a fine of Rs20,000.

Provincial Census Commissioner Noor Muhammad Leghari told The Express Tribune on Thursday that they have gathered information on such enumerators and “they may even lose their jobs”. The use of pencils, registers, photocopies and any other paper not authorised by the government was prohibited and those who have done so have violated the rules, he said.

The house counting, which is part one of the Census 2011, has been completed in 22 districts of the province. Karachi is the only district where the enumerators will cover the remaining one per cent of the houses by Friday evening, said Leghari. He explained that the counting was delayed in the city because there are so many high-rise buildings.

According to the reports submitted by the DCO, the enumerators have yet to count about a third of the houses in Baldia Town. They also have to count three of the 1,300 villages in the city’s suburbs.

Leghari said that the federal government gave Sindh Rs160 million to meet census-related expenses. Out of this amount, Rs60 million were allocated for Karachi. The enumerators will receive at least Rs9,000 each for their services along with any outstanding dues for their services during the past census or during the elections.

Only a small percentage of the residents did not cooperate with the enumerators and there were few cases of misbehaviour in Karachi and Hyderabad, he added.

Referring to the workload assigned to each enumerator, Leghari said that one worker had to perform the house count in three blocks. However, during the population census, only a single block will be assigned to each worker and the government will hire more enumerators for that phase. The findings of the house count will be forwarded to the relevant institutions so that they can use them for planning.

Leghari clarified that the deadline was extended for other provinces where the law and order situation delayed the counting.

City government officials transferred

The city government has transferred some of its officials for making false claims. Transfer orders of the Saddar Town revenue DDO, Arif Kalwar, the Jamshed Town DDO and the Gulshan-e-Iqbal DDO were issued earlier this week, Revenue EDO Roshan Ali Shaikh told The Express Tribune.

The government received complaints from census officials that these officers had claimed that the house count in their neighbourhoods was complete even though that was not the case, Shaikh said.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 29^th, 2011.