Filling census forms with pencils not allowed, says chief statistician

ISLAMABAD: Chief Statistician Asif Bajwa on Friday said Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) had issued no such direction to use pencil to fill census forms, ARY News reported.

“No enumerator or supervisor has been issued a pencil for filling forms. All of them should have pens for this purpose. Filling forms with pencils is not allowed at any cost,” he said while addressing a press conference in Islamabad regarding complaints received during three days of census.

He said one such incident has been encountered during the census so far in which a female enumerator was using pencil, only to be filled the form later by pen.

“The enumerator reasoned that she used pencil for fear of mistakes and thought of filling forms later by herself with pen. She had no such official directions,” he said.

The chief statistician also clarified that she was filling a form of house count and not a population census.

He said PBS was resolving complaints regarding house count. He said census numbers were written on outer wall of every apartment, if there is somewhere the number is missing, you should immediately report it. Each apartment will also have a number other than the number on building, he added.

“A house with ground plus two storeys will be considered one structure. People have assumed that if the structure is housing two families then it should have two numbers, which is wrong. However, each family will be enumerated separately,” he said.

Somewhere in Lahore some enumerators reached late so we replaced them with another trained team for we cannot bear negligence in this regard, he said.

He said distinguishing codes have been incorporated to count transgenders and disabled.

Asif Bajwa cautioned masses that their staff had a green jacket with written “Census 2017” on its back.