Population census to start next month: CM

Results not being released out of fear of controversy.

KARACHI:

The third and final phase of census taking, this time for the population, after houses, will start next month, announced the chief minister on Thursday.

The provincial census commission will not, however, be using staff from the district or city governments or the water board, given their controversial performance during the house listing process in Karachi. However, the staff of the education, health, revenue and social welfare departments will be enlisted for do the job. There may possibly be changes in the schedule to accommodate Ramazan.

As complaints and objections were raised by different quarters over the house listing, the Federal Bureau of Statistics has started verifying the census blocks. “This is meant to double check the process,” an official said on condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the allegations. “The objections will be rectified in the final phase.”

The house listing started on April 4 and ended on May 5 and its results have been prepared and sent to the federal government and officials working at the provincial level. But they were reluctant to share the numbers. “The findings of the report can only be made public by the federal government itself after the entire census is done,” said provincial census commissioner, Noor Mohammad Leghari. “It will create a controversy at this stage.”

And while the results are not official, a reliable source in the provincial election commission, which is a joint stakeholder in the process told The Express Tribune that about 10.7 million families been registered in Sindh out of which 3.6 million families belonged to Karachi, which is 33% of the total house count in the province.

Sources said that 7.73 million families have been registered in the remaining 22 districts of the province — 2.7 million families in Hyderabad division, 1.7 million in Sukkur, 1.2 million in Larkana and 1.2 million in Mirpurkhas.

Regarding Karachi’s five districts, sources said that 1.193 million families have been counted in district Central, 1.1 families in district East, 0.535 million in district West, 0.43 million in district South. “Each family consist of four to seven members, which means that the total census of Sindh could climb to 70 million as compared to 30 million in 1998,” sources said.

But the Provincial Census Commission refuted this report and said that the figures were baseless. “It’s not the job of the Election Commission to initiate the census; we are the main stakeholders. I challenge these figures,” Leghari told The Express Tribune.

Talking to The Express Tribune about the preparations for the population census a few weeks ago, Leghari said that they had notified 129 census districts in the province out of which 80 districts are in Karachi alone. The total number of blocks would be around 35,000 and they would need 42,000 enumerators for the population census. Suffice it to say that as the administrative changes have been made across Sindh - with commissioners being introduced - there is a possibility that the plans will change.

Otherwise, theoretically, each of the enumerators will work on one block. According to Leghari, they have started updating the maps for each block via satellite technology. “We have maps for 2007 and a number of new villages and katchi abadis have been established, therefore we are getting the help of the satellite system to update the maps,” he said.

Access to cantonements needs to be granted by the General Headquarters (GHQ) but the Military Lands DG and heads of Karachi’s six cantonments had in principle assured of cooperation.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 15^th, 2011.