After the apprehensions expressed by various political, religious and nationalists parties and civil society organisations on the census being conducted by the staff of Karachi and Hyderabad district governments, the Sindh government is likely to assign teachers for this task in the two cities, Pakistan Today has learnt.
The staff of the Karachi and Hyderabad district governments – approximately 22,000 enumerators belonging to the Education, Local Government and Revenue departments – had performed the house count duties in April due to alleged political interference in both cities.
However, the Population Census Organisation has decided to train teachers to carry out the census, scheduled to be held in the mid of September, well-placed sources in the Sindh Education Department told Pakistan Today.
The sources said that the Education Department had requested the Population Census Organisation to start training teachers after Ramazan.
“It was also requested that the dates of census be changed as training could not be provided to teachers during this month,” they said.
Although, the Council of Common Interest (CCI) had finalised the census schedule – September 12 to 27 – sources said that the final date for the census would be decided again by the CCI after Eidul Fitr.
With the shortage of teachers in Sindh’s two major cities, the staff of city district government and the revenue officials had performed the housing-census duties in Karachi and Hyderabad. However, the remaining 21 districts of the Sindh had enough number of teachers to carry out the task.
