ALI HUSSAIN

ISLAMABAD: Finance Minister Ishaq Dar on Sunday said that the nation should reject international community’s objection on involving the military in conducting and supervising the 6th population and house census, as the first phase of the exercise covering half of the population completed on April 15.

Briefing journalists along with Chief Census Commissioner Asif Bajwa and Special Assistant to the Prime Minister Khawaja Zaheer Ahmad, the Finance Minister said that Phase-II will commence on April 25, 2017, which will cover 87 districts comprising 262 census districts and 87,823 blocks.

He said that around 43,950 enumerators will be engaged and the second phase will conclude in a month which would also cover the whole federally administered tribal areas (FATA) and those internally displaced persons (IDPs) if any of them are still in camps would be enumerated.

To a question about the objection of international community and foreign observers on conducting the census operation in supervision of the military and also involving them in the process, he said that the military was involved in the process to ensure transparency and curability of the census that is taking place after 19 years.

“We don’t need to take dictation from others,” he said.

The whole nation should overrule any such objection, he said, adding we should take our decisions ourselves and if we conduct a referendum over 90 percent people would describe it [army involvement] correct.

“The partnership with the military was necessary to ensure transparency and credibility of the whole process,” he reiterated.

He said that around 200,000 Army personnel have been deployed on census duty, while 44,000 Army personnel have been deployed for enumeration work including 5 percent reserve staff. Remaining Army personnel are being used for provision of security to the field staff in addition to the civil armed forces and police force, he added.

At the same time, he also maintained that the entire nation and the observers both local and the foreigners were satisfied with the first phase of the census, adding half of the population of the country has been covered in the first phase.

He said that six teams of international as well as national observers provided by UNFPA visited all provinces who have been mandate to undertake an independent, unbiased observation and monitoring of the census process and to provide regular feedback as well as technical assistance during census activities.

He said that all out efforts are being made for the transparency and credibility of the 6th population and housing census, the first phase of the census operation has been successfully completed in 63 districts.

He said that first phase started from March 15, 2017 and continued till April 15, 2017 and the operation has been successfully completed. However, he pointed out that there were a few untoward incidents during the first phase including a suicide attack on military census team in Lahore on April 05, 2017 in which four soldiers and three passer-by were killed and 19 other injured.

Furthermore, he said that in a road Accident in Mansehra on March 16, one enumerator died, whereas two enumerators who were kidnapped in Kech district of Balochistan who are still missing. One Charge Superintendent also died due to heart attack while on duty on April 2.

He also congratulated the census staff and the military leadership on the successful completion of the first phase.

He said that the information gathered through the census will be made public after compilation in about two months.

Asif Bajwa said that the international observers who are monitoring the census operation have expressed satisfaction about the credibility and transparency of the process. He said that Rs18.5 billion have been allocated for the census operation including Rs 6 billion for civilian staff and Rs 6 billion for the armed forces while Rs 6.5 billion have been allocated for transportation of the staff and the census material.

Talking about the public support, he said that the census teams got very enthusiastic support throughout the country. He also maintained that census has been generally acceptable to all sections of the populace with no boycotts reported.

Referring to the complaints received during the process, he said that a total of 4,337 complaints were received at federal and provincial control rooms such as use of pencils, house/street not listed, house number marked but not counted in Form-2, adding all such complaints were addressed by sending supervisory teams to the complainants.

To another question, he said that a complaint by different religious groups has also been addressed. However, according to PM’s special assistant, Khawaja Zahir Ahmad, there was no mention on the form to collect data of different sects of Islam.