Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) has asked the government to provide security and support to enumerators for conducting Housing and Population Census in troubled areas of the country. The Chief Census Commissioner said that some areas of the country were problematic in terms of security while in some areas people were not willing to share data with the enumerators.
"We have asked the government to provide the support of rangers and other law enforcement agencies to the people involved in conducting census," he added. Briefing the National Assembly Standing Committee on Economic Affairs on Tuesday, the Chief Census Commissioner suggested that provincial quota of natural resources be frozen at 1998 population census to depoliticise the 6th Population Census and ensure transparency.
Secretary PBS Sohail Ahmed informed that house listing survey was completed in the months of April-May 2011 and a proposal was taken to the Council of Common Interest (CCI) for conducting population census in September 2011. He said that the CCI did not take up the agenda item with respect to census after which it was decided that a meeting between Prime Minister and provincial Chief Ministers would be convened separately to discuss the matter. However, the meeting could not take place despite several attempts by the statistics division for holding such a meeting. He said that the PBS was fully prepared for census and training of master trainers and other pre-requisites had been completed. The co-ordination and establishment of monitoring rooms was at final stage, he added.
The Census Commissioner informed the committee that unexpected results or trends of the household survey had been shared with the Prime Minister. However, he avoided answering the questions raised by the members about the reason for stalling the population census. He also mentioned that some elements were interested in influencing the outcome of the Census. He said that enumerators had no access to Baloch belt in Balochistan province because of lack of co-operation by the law enforcement agencies while there was no hurdle to access the Pakhtoon areas in Balochistan.
Similarly, he said that converge was not done properly in Punjab and it was disclosed in the follow up round that census survey numbers on houses were missing. To a question, he said that major reason for under converge in Punjab was lack of monitoring by the provincial administration. The meeting was also informed that annual increase in population was around 3 percent during 1971 to 1981 and 1.96 percent in 1981 to 1998. The annual growth rate in population is expected to be around 1.6 percent.
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