Census has legal and political impacts: CM Murad

KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah on Monday directed the provincial authorities that in the upcoming census, every single person must be counted and foreigners and illegal immigrants be excluded from the count as “census has legal and political impacts”.

Presiding over a cabinet meeting here at New Sindh Secretariat, he said census provides basis for political representation in the assemblies, delimitation of constituencies, basis for distribution of funds from divisible pool and determination of quota for recruitment to all civil positions in the federal government.

The meeting was attended by all the provincial ministers, the advisors to CM and special assistants. Chief Secretary Sindh Rizwan Memon, Inspector General Sindh AD Khawaja, Chief Statistician Asif Bajwan, representative of National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) Sohail and other senior officers were also present on the occasion.

The agenda of the cabinet included law & order, food authority bill, conflict interest bills, law regarding collection of Ushr, shelter home, population & housing census and some other items. The chief minister differed all the other items and allowed presentation and discussion on population census only and briefing by Nadra representative.

The Chief Statistician gave detailed briefing to cabinet on the census plan.

He said that so far five census have been conducted which include of 1951, 1961, 1972, 1981 and 1998. The 6th population & housing census was due in 2008 but could not be held and now it would be conducted from March 15, 2017 as approved by CCI in its meting held on December 16, 2016.

The cabinet was told that the house listing and census operation would be carried out in one-go. Form 2 would be used in census operation while form 2-A would be filled in on sample basis after the census operation is over.

On this the chief Mukesh Kumar Chawla said that the form 2-A carries important information of migrations, age disability and such others. It is an important form and must be included in the census in a formal way. The chief minister taking the point of Mr Chawla said that he would take up the issue with the federal government.

Talking about methodology for field operation, the cabinet was informed that there was an enumeration method under which information would be recorded on questionnaires through door-to-door process.

“The population count to be made at usual place of residence. All the persons residing in the country except diplomats and refugees living in the camps would be counted in the census process. Under the field operation house listing and population & Housing census would be conducted in one go, means first three days for house listing followed by 10 days for census operation and one day for homeless. This census would be conducted in two phases and operation would start simultaneously in all the provinces,” the cabinet was told.

The cabinet was told that that there are 29 administrative district 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 for housing numbering, 10 days for filling up of Form-2 and one day for enumeration of homeless population. Two blocks would be assigned to one enumerator, each phase would be completed over a period of 30 days and second phase would be started with a gap of 10 days and one uniform soldier would accompany each enumerator.

The details of the phase-wise field operation plan as shared with the cabinet says that the three-day house listing operation would start on March 15 to 17, Block-wise 10-days filing up of Form-2 would start on March 18 to March 17, one day enumeration of homeless population at one-day per block would be made on March 28 and retrieval of filled in documents and issuance of census material for 2ndBlock would sstart from March 29, 2017 to March 30. The second phase would start house listing operation from May 11 to May 13, 2017.

The cabinet was also told that for complete coverage and effective field supervision the country has been delimited on four tiers — the census district comprising district/taluka/cantonments/agencies. Census Charge comprises of Qanungo Halqa/Part of Urban area/ Cantonment. There are five to seven circles are in a charge. The census circle comprises patwar circle/part of Urba area/cantonment and five to seven Blocks in a circle and each circle has 1500 houses on a an average. Census Block has 200 to 250 houses.

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

Replying to a question, the chief minister was told that training of trainers would start on January 24, 2017, training of enumerators would be started on February 4, some 183 trainers would train 28038 field staff in 704 batches and field staff would get training for four days.

Murad Ali Shah was told that one soldier would accompany each enumerator. He would independently record the number of each household. CNIC number of the head or any member of the household to be recorded for verification purposes. Vigilance teams would be formed at census district level to monitor census work and ensure complete coverage of population. Coordination committee have been formed at provincial, district and census district level. Maps of each census block showing well known land marks would be provided to enumerators/supervisors. Census documents would be retrieved under sealed covers affixed with special stickers under the supervision of armed forces.

The cabinet was also informed that publicity campaign would be launched to educate the general public and seek their cooperation. Publicity to cover penalty provision in the Act for the wring doers would be made to ensure credibility of census data and the forms have unique bar code and photocopy or locally printed forms cannot be processed.

NADRA PRESENTATION

Representative of Nadra Sohail briefing the cabinet said that 22.4 million people have been issued CNICs and a population of 3.3 million is under 18 years age.

Replying to a question of the chief minister Sohail said that Nadra has 30 mobile vehicles to issue CNICs, out of them 13 would be sent to the areas where CNICs are required to be issued. On this the chief minister said that he in consultation of his cabinet members would identify the areas where CNICs are required to be issued and inform Nadra to send their teams there.

Syed Murad Ali Shah also 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 CINCs per day. On this the cabinet decided to approach the federal government to enhance its mobile teams.

The cabinet was also informed that some 15,000 CNICs issued to people of different areas of the province but they have not collected them, therefore the NADRA was going to destroy them. On this the chief minister advised the Nadra to make an attempt to deliver these card to the concerned persons. “My divisional and district administration would support you if you provide us a list of such cards,” he said.

Concluding the cabinet meeting the chief minister said that the policy of the census should be very clear that each and every one must be counted at right place. The Sindh government would extend maximum support to Bureau of Statistics and Nadra, he assured.