Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah has urged that each and everyone excluding foreigners/illegal immigrants must be counted in the census because of its legal and political impacts in the provincial representation and share in decision-making process and resources of the country.
He made this directive presiding over a cabinet meeting at the New Sindh Secretariat on Monday which was attended by all provincial ministers. The advisors and special assistants to the CM were issued special invitation for the meeting where chief secretary Rizwan Memon, IG Sindh Police AD Khwaja, chief statistician Asif Bajwan, representative of NADRA Sohail and other senior officers also attended.
Sindh chief minister cited that political representation in the legislatures, delimitation of the electoral constituencies, distribution of funds from federal divisible pool and determination of quota of the jobs in the federal government are based on the census.
Although the agenda of the cabinet included law and order, food authority bill, conflict interest bill, law regarding collection of Ushr, Panah Shelter Home, population and housing census and some other items, Murad Shah deferred all the other items and wanted presentation and discussion on population census and briefing by NADRA representative.
The chief statistician gave an in-depth briefing to the provincial cabinet on the census plan. He said that five census had been conducted so far which included 1951, 1961, 1972, 1981 and 1998. The 6th population and 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 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.
The minister Mukesh Kumar Chawla said that the form 2-A carries important information of migrations, age disability and such other information. It is an important form and must be included in the census in a formal way. The chief minister taking the point of 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 collected and recorded in questionnaires through door to door visits. 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 and housing census would be conducted in one go but in two phases. Operation would begin simultaneously in all the provinces.
The cabinet was told that there were 29 administrative district and 146 census districts in the province which included 932 census charges, 5132 census circles and 38842 census blocks. Each block would be completed in 14 days with three days for house 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 within 30 days. One soldier in uniform 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 and end on 17, Block-wise 10-day Form-2 filling would begin on March 18 that would be continued till March 27, one day enumeration of homeless population would be made on March 28. The second phase would begin by house listing operation from May 11 and to continue till May 13, 2017.
The cabinet was told that for complete coverage and effective field supervision the country was delimited in four tiers including the Census District, Charges, Circles and Blocks. Census District comprises of: district/taluka/cantonments/agencies; Census Charge comprises of Qanungo Halqa/part of urban area/cantonment. There are five to seven circles in a charge; the Census Circle comprises of patwar circle/part of Urban 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 begin in Karachi (all districts), Hyderabad and Ghotki and second phase would cover rest of the districts of Sindh province.
The cabinet was informed that census operation requires a field force of 28038 as Enumerators and Supervisors in the province. For the purpose the employees of provincial Education, Revenue, Local Government, Population Welfare and other departments were being assigned and the process was in progress.
The chief minister was told that training of trainers would begin on January 24, 2017, training of enumerators would be started on February 4 while some 183 trainers would train 28038 field staff in 704 batches and field staff would get training for four days.
Murad Shah was told that each enumerator accompanied by a uniformed cop would independently record the number of each household. CNIC number of the head or any member of the household would be recorded for verification purpose. Vigilance teams would be formed at census district level to monitor census work and ensure complete coverage of population. Co-ordination committees have been formed at provincial, district and census district level. Maps of each census block showing well-known landmarks would be provided to the 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 co-operation. Publicity to cover penalty provision in the Act for the wrongdoers 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.
The chief minister was informed that provisional results would be declared in 60 days and regular reports would be made public. The subject wise/analytical reports on important topics and census atlas giving visual presentation of census would also be issued.
Taking part in the questions-answers, the provincial minister Manzoor Wassan pointed out that the census 'Form' includes only six religions and 10 languages and ignores Zoroastrians religion and Gujrati and Kathiawari languages.
The chief minister pointed out that the mother tongue of the father of nation Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah was Gujrati and it should have been included in the form. In this way it would have been easy to assess how many Zoroastrians, Gujrati and other religionists and ethnic groups live in Sindh. Murad Shah said that he would take up this issue with federal government and for that purpose he issued directives to the chief secretary.
MPA Dr Mahesh Malani said that there was no provision of counting the gypsies in the census. On this the Chief Statistician told him that they would be counted in the homeless persons.
Senior provincial minister Nisar Khuhro said that there was no proper mechanism to file objections and remove them. There should have been an elected representative for monitoring. On this he was told that the supervision committee has an elected local body representative.
NADRA PESENTATION:
The representative of NADRA Sohail briefing the cabinet said that there were 22.4 million people have been issued CNICs and a population of 3.3 million was under 18 years. Replying to a question of the chief minister sohail said that NADRA has 30 mobile vehicles to issue CNIC, 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 CNIC are required and inform NADRA to send their teams there.
Murad Shah also pointed out that 13 vehicles are not enough to cater to the requirement 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. On this the cabinet decided to approach the federal government to increase its mobile teams.
The cabinet was also informed that some 15000 CNICs of people of different areas of the province were ready but they had 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 cards to the concerned persons. "My divisional and district administration will 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 the Bureau of Statistics and NADRA, he assured.
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