Census in parts of Balochistan put off

Tariq Butt
Thursday, April 14, 2011

The ongoing Rs9 billion nationwide housing and population census has been impeded by poor law and order in five districts of Balochistan.

“We will conduct the housing census in districts of Panjgur, Kharan, Awaran, Khuzdar and another with the help of the civil armed forces and the provincial government later after the exercise would conclude on April 19,” Population Census Organization Director General M Akram Janjua told The News.

He said that the duly appointed enumerators have faced no problem in any other area of Balochistan. He said the census has to be carried out in districts of Panjgur, Kharan, Awaran, Khuzdar and another to have a correct data about the houses and population.

The official said that house listing in the tribal areas was going smoothly mainly because of the presence of the Pakistan Army.

Janjua said that even in Karachi there was only one incident in which two motorcyclists fired at an enumerator, injuring his leg. A case has been lodged with police, he said adding that the Sindh chief secretary has been approached with the request to ensure security and safety of the census staff.

However, the census became bloodied on Tuesday, when, according to a report, two employees of the Karachi Water & Sewerage Board and one of the Fire Department, who were collecting housing data, were shot dead by unidentified motorcyclists in Karachi.

The official said that in the initial stages, problems were faced by enumerators as they were not allowed to do their job in cantonment areas. But now military authorities have directed concerned officials to permit the house listing, which is proceeding in a normal way.

According to the last population census conducted in 1998, Pakistan had a population of 132,352,279. Of them, 68873686 were males while 63478593 were females.

The official said there have been no large-scale complaints during the house listing. The staff writes a number on every housing unit and fills up a form, having eight questions, on the basis of information provided by the occupants. This relates to the head of the household and other family members and their identity cards.

The staff ensures that there was no economic activity going on in the houses and these are being purely used for residential purposes. The government plans to extend the housing census by a few days in areas where it was not completed within the given time. The house listing will end by April 19. In end-August or early September, population census would start and conclude in just ten days. It will begin after the approval of the federal cabinet.

According to the official, an amount of Rs1.5 billion would be spent on the house listing while Rs7 billion funds would be required for the population census. He said that funding was no problem.

The final compilation of the data of the entire country regarding houses and population, collected during the census, would take several months to complete. Officials concede that conduct of population census has always been a very difficult exercise in Pakistan due to political considerations in the wake of conflicting groups’ efforts to get their population increased. That is why, they say, the present census is being carried out after a lapse of thirteen years while the 1998 census was conducted after seventeen years.

However, they note that no major controversy has so far hit the ongoing house listing and hope that population census would also be carried out smoothly.

http://www.thenews.com.pk/TodaysPrintDetail.aspx?ID=41539&Cat=6&dt=4/14/2011