In the first phase House Listing Operation (HLO) would be conducted in April 2010, whereas in the second phase Population Census will be conducted in October 2010, Khan said. The meeting reviewed the revised schedule of upcoming Population and Housing Census in the country.
First Task Force meeting was attended by Muhammad Saeed, Census Commissioner and senior officers of UNDP, UNIFEM, Unesco, Unicef, UNHABITAT, ILO, UNFPA and Population Census Organisation. Various technical and logistical issues for the conduct of coming census were discussed in the meeting.
The Chief Census Commissioner said that the Census Commissionarate has sent a summary on this issue to the Prime Minister for final nod. He said that census is the biggest field exercise in the country which would involve mobilisation of 175,000 manpower for specific time period.
Like previous censuses, the next census would be conducted through door to door enumeration. Keeping in view of these facts the revised schedule for the coming census has been proposed to the Prime Minister, he added. It is pertinent to note that the national census was scheduled earlier in October 2009, however due to given situation of insurgency in Fata and some parts of NWFP and the fact that Army was not free to assist in conducting the census it was postponed in the meeting of Inter Provincial Co-ordination Committee (PCC) held under the chairmanship of the Prime Minister.
Khizar Hayat Khan informed that a meeting was held with the Governor NWFP on December 2, 2009 in connection with holding of census in 2010 and the Governor assured full support to hold the Census in October 2010 and House Listing in April, 2010. He said that preparatory work for holding the census which include consultation with the stakeholders, preparation of rural and urban area maps, delimitation of census areas and formulation of census questionnaires have already been finalised.