Population, housing census 2011 kicks off

The much-awaited sixth Population and Housing Census 2011 kicked off on Tuesday with house listing operation all across the country. The house listing operation would continue till April 19 which would be followed by the main population and housing census in August or September this year.
Population Census Organisation (PCO) of Statistics Division has made all arrangements across the country including Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan for holding the census, sources told APP. Both the phases, including house listing and main population and housing census, would be completed within 15 days each and the final report would be submitted to the government by December this year.
During the house listing exercise, authorised enumerators would visit door to door, mark the house number and register head of the house in the light of the details of his Computerised National Identity Card (CNIC). Sources said that the census is being conducted in collaboration with local administration, adding that in case of security requirements, local police would be engaged while Civil Armed Forces would also be available as and when required in sensitive areas.
The PCO has established as many as 145,844 census blocks all across the country. Each block roughly comprises 200 houses and one block would be assigned to one enumerator for conducting the exercise. Overall, 423 census districts with 3,187 census charges have been established. To effectively conduct the exercise, there would be 20,072 census circles in these charges, they maintained. Sources further said that each census charge in urban areas would include five to seven circles and each census circle would comprise five to seven blocks while each census block 200 to 250 houses. In rural areas, census charge would include total number of patwar circles, census circle total number of mauzas while the census block would comprise 200-250 houses.
They said, "Latest technology of Intelligent Character Recognition (ICR) would be used for timely compilation and processing of census data to enhance speed and accuracy at data capturing stage". Three types of questionnaires will be used including Form-1 for house listing, Form-2 for main census operation while Form-2A will be used on sample basis for detail questions. The topics to be covered in census include demographic and social characteristics, literacy status, geographical or migration characteristics, economic characteristics and fertility or mortality (females 15-49 years).
The housing characteristics include information about living quarters; number of rooms, sex of the owner, tenure status, period since constructed and construction material used in outer walls and roofs. It also includes data on source of drinking water, source of lighting and cooking fuel used, availability of proper kitchen, bathroom, latrine and type of latrine, medium of information such as T.V., radio, newspaper, telephone and mobile. The Statistics Division has appealed people to co-operate with the authorised enumerators for successful completion of the national exercise for the benefit of the country.