Proper care necessary regarding census: Murad

Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah has said that a census has legal and political repercussions.

“It provides the basis for political representation in the assemblies, delimitation of constituencies, the basis for distribution of funds from the divisible pool, and determination of quota for recruitment to all civil positions in the federal government. Therefore, each and every citizen must be counted, and foreigners and illegal immigrants must be excluded,” the chief minister said.

This he said while presiding over a cabinet meeting at the New Sindh Secretariat on Monday. The meeting was attended by all provincial ministers, advisors to the CM, special assistants, Chief Secretary Rizwan Memon, Sindh IGP A D Khawaja, Chief Statistician Asif Bajwa, NADRA Representative Sohail, and other senior officers.

The agenda of the meeting included law and order, the food authority bill, conflict of interest bills, a law regarding collection of Ushr, panah shelter homes, the population & housing census, and other items. The chief minister deferred all the other agendas except the population census and a briefing by the NADRA representative.

The chief statistician gave a detailed briefing to the cabinet on the census plan. He said that so far five censuses have been conducted in the years 1951, 1961, 1972, 1981 and 1998. The 6th population and housing census was due in 2008 but will instead be conducted from March 15, 2017, as approved by the CCI in its meeting held on December 16.

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.

Mukesh Kumar Chawla said that the form 2-A carries important migratory information, and must be formally included in the census. The chief minister 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 door to door. The population count is to be made at usual places of residence. All the persons residing in the country except diplomats and refugees living in camps would be counted in the census.

The first three days will be for house listing followed by 10 days for census and one day for the homeless. This census would be conducted in two phases and operations would start simultaneously in all the provinces.

The cabinet was told that there are 29 administrative districts and 146 census districts in the province which include 932 census charges, 5,132 census circles and 38,842 census blocks. Each block would be completed in 14 days and three days would be allotted for housing numbering, 10 days for filling up of form-2 and one day for enumeration of the homeless population.

Two blocks would be assigned to one enumerator, each phase would be completed over a period of 30 days, and the second phase would be started after a gap of 10 days. One uniformed soldier will accompany each enumerator, who will independently record the numbers of each household.

The cabinet was also told that for complete coverage and effective field supervision, the country has been delimited on four tiers: district, taluka, cantonments, and agencies.

The phase one would start in Karachi (all districts), Hyderabad and Ghotki, while the second phase would cover rest of Sindh’s districts.

The cabinet was informed that the census operation requires a field force of 28,038 enumerators and supervisors for the province, for which Employees of education, revenue, local government, population welfare and other departments will be appointed. The appointment of the staff has started.

Replying to a question, the chief minister was told that training of trainers will start on January 24 and the training of enumerators will start on February 4

Some 183 trainers will train 28,038 field staff in 704 batches over four days.

Vigilance teams will be formed at the district level to monitor census work and ensure complete coverage of the population.

Maps of each census block showing well-known landmarks will be provided to enumerators and supervisors. Census documents will be retrieved under sealed covers affixed with special stickers under the supervision of the armed forces.

The cabinet was also informed that a publicity campaign will be launched to educate the general public and seek their cooperation.

Provisional results will be declared in 60 days with tabulation on important characteristics. Subject-wise reports on important topics and visual presentations of the census will also be issued.

NADRA representative Sohail briefing the cabinet said that there were 22.4 million people who have been issued CNICs and a population of 3.3 million is under 18 years of age. Replying to a question Sohail said that NADRA had 30 mobile vehicles to issue CNICs.

Murad Ali Shah pointed out that 13 vehicles are not enough to cater to the requirements of far-flung areas. Replying to a question of Jam Khan Shoro, the NADRA representative said that each mobile team could issue only 60 to 100 CNICs per day.

The cabinet decided to approach the federal government to enhance its mobile teams.