Census to be held in October

[Naveed Yaseen]

KARACHI (July 19 2008): Chief Census Commissioner Khizar Hayat Khan, said on Friday that national census 2008 would be held in October this year and all arrangements "have been completed" in this regard. He was talking to media persons during the tea break of the two-day workshop for training the master trainers for '6th Population and Housing Census of Pakistan', in the Conference Hall of Federal Bureau of Statistics.

Pakistan Census Office (PCO) will organise training workshops all over Pakistan in collaboration with United Nations Development Fund for Women (Unifem). Responding to a question that census has been postponed for two years, he said that it was incorrect and baseless. "Our arrangements are in place, with the start of training of master trainers for enumerators who will collect data of housing units, in the first phase, and head count in the second phase", he said.

He said that the first phase of "house listing" will start in October 2008, while the population census can be delayed till March, 2009, if needed. But the census process has to be started in October or November, 2008 under Constitutional obligation, he noted.

Khizar said that about 150,000 to 160,000 census supervisors and enumerators, mostly from education and revenue departments of each province, would be involved in the collection of data about housing units and population all over Pakistan.

Earlier, speaking at the seminar on 'Role of Women in Census', the Chief Census Commissioner urged the enumerators and their trainers to create a friendly atmosphere to get accurate data on housing and head count during the census period. Dr Naushin Mahmood also delivered a lecture on training and collection of data from population.

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