Daily Times

KARACHI: As many as 28,038 enumerators and supervisors will conduct the upcoming census in the province.”In this regard, the employees of the Provincial Education Department, Revenue, Local Government, Population Welfare and other departments would be appointed. The appointment of the staff has started”, Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah was informed at a crucial cabinet meeting held under his chairmanship on Monday.

Replying to a question, the Chief Minister was told that teaching procedure of trainers would start on January 24, 2017 and training of enumerators would start on February 4, some 183 teachers would train 28,038 field staff in 704 batches and field staff would get training for four days.

The CM has said that there are legal and political impacts of the census because it provides basis for political representation in the assemblies, delimitation of constituencies, the basis for distribution of funds from a divisible pool and determination of quota for recruitment to all civil positions in the federal government. Therefore, each and every one must be counted; foreigners and illegal immigrants be excluded from the count.

The agenda of the cabinet included law & order, food authority bill, conflict of interest bills, law regarding collection of Ushr, Panah Shelter Home, population & housing census and some and other items. The Chief Minister deferred all the other items and allowed presentation and discussion on the population census and briefing by a NADRA representative.

The Chief Statistician gave detailed briefing to the cabinet on the census plan.

He said that, so far, five census have been conducted in the years 1951, 1961, 1972, 1981 and 1998. The 6th population & housing census was due in 2008 but could not be held and now it will be conducted from March 15, 2017 as approved by CCI in its meting held on December 16, 2016.

The cabinet was told that the house listing and census operation would be carried out in one-go. Form 2 would be used in the census operation while form 2-A would be filled in on a sample basis after the census operation is over.

On this, Mukesh Kumar Chawla said that the form 2-A carries important information of migrations, age disability and such others. It is an important form and must be included in the census in a formal way. The Chief Minister taking the point of Mr Chawla said that he would take up the issue with the Federal Government.

Talking about the methodology for field operations, the cabinet was informed that there was an Enumeration method under which information would be collected and recorded on questionnaires through door to door surveys. The population count to be made at the usual place of residence. All the persons residing in the country except diplomats and refugees living in the camps, would be counted in the census process. Under the field operation house listing and Population & Housing census would be conducted in one go, which means that the first three days of the census would be for house listing followed by 10 days for census operation and one day for the homeless. This census would be conducted in two phases and operations would start simultaneously in all the provinces.

Phase one would start in Karachi (all districts), Hyderabad and Ghotki and the second phase would cover the rest of the districts of the province.

The Chief Minister was told that one soldier would accompany each enumerator. He would independently record the number of each household. CNIC number of the head or any member of the household to be recorded for verification purposes. Vigilance teams would be formed at district level to monitor the census and ensure complete coverage of the population. Coordination committees have been formed at provincial, district and district levels. Maps of each census block, showing well known land marks, would be provided to enumerators/supervisors. Census documents would be retrieved under sealed covers affixed with special stickers under the supervision of armed forces.

On a query the chief minister was informed that provisional results would be declared in 60 days with advance tabulation on important characteristics to be made and regular reports would be made public. The subject wise/analytical reports on important topics and the census atlas giving a visual presentation of the census days would be also be issued.

Taking part in the question and answers session, the Provincial Minister Manzoor Wassan said that in the census Form only six religions and 10 languages have been reflected by ignoring Zoroastrians and their language, Gujrati, Kathiawari and such other local languages have also been left out.. The Chief Minister pointed out that the mother tongue of the Father of the Nation, Quaid-i-Azam Mohamad Ali Jinnah was Gujrati and it should have been included in the form. In this way it would have been easy to assess how many Zoroastrians, Gujrati and others live in Sindh. The Chief Minister said that he would take up the issues with the Federal Government, and for that purpose he issued directives to the Chief Secretary.

The meeting was attended by all provincial ministers while the advisors to the CM and Special Assistants attended the meeting through special invitation. The Chief Secretary, Rizwan Memon, IG Sindh AD Khowaja, Chief Statistician Asif Bajwan, Mr Sohail representative of NADRA and other senior officers attended the meeting.