Bahawalnagar census fraught with problems
Over 290 households in Bahawalnagar district were incorrectly registered during the country’s first digital census. Show-cause notices were issued to supervisors and enumerators and census remains incomplete, despite an extension of the deadline until April 10, The Express Tribune learnt on Tuesday.
Schoolteacher Kashif Jahangir, who was working as an enumerator in Bahawalnagar, was issued a show-cause notice by the Assistant Commissioner for recording the wrong number of people living in houses. Jahangir registered four persons in house number 64 in his block, while a seven persons were residing in the house.
Additionally, one person was registered in house number 77, when in fact three people were living there.
House numbers 87, 88, 96 and 99 were also wrongly entered. Thus, Jahangir reduced the population by incorrectly recording 16 people living in six houses. As a result, the census could not be completed despite the deadline in several blocks in Bahawalnagar.
Bahawalnagar Assistant Commissioner Amna Ehsan summoned the supervisors and their subordinate staff over not completing the census or recording incorrect data for a hearing.
Around 18 households in Tehsil Bahawalnagar, 66 in Tehsil Chishtian, 110 in Tehsil Fort Abbas, 34 in Tehsil Haroonabad, 70 in Tehsil Manchanabad, and 106 households in the Cholistan region were incorrectly recorded, or not recorded at all, during the census.
The Pakistan Bureau of Statistics released a scathing performance report of the first eleven days of the census, which revealed the poor performance of the district administration. According to the report, a total of 49 supervisors were working in tehsil Bahawalnagar, of which 23 supervisors had zero performance, 13 had less than 50 percent performance and only 13 out of 49 supervisors had achieved higher than the 50 percent target.
Assistant Commissioner Bahawalnagar also summoned six supervisors, including Aziz Badar, Asif Arif and Muhammad Afzal, who did not complete work and eight enumerators through a letter dated April 3rd for a personal hearing. Apart from this, a show-cause notice was also issued to the supervisors who did not submit the certificate of completion of the work.
Published in The Express Tribune, April 12th, 2023.