PESHAWAR: The second phase of the sixth national population census will begin in the 12 remaining districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, six agencies and six Frontier Regions of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas today (Tuesday).

The officials said arrangements for the one-month long exercise had been finalised, while the required material had been sent to the respective districts.

Thousands of the Pakistan Army, police and Frontier Constabulary personnel will provide security to enumerators in KP, while the Frontier Corps, Levies and Khasaddars men backed by the Army units will protect the census staff members in the militancy-stricken Fata.

The tribal region has been divided in 4,094 blocks and one enumerator will cover two blocks.

The enumerators will carry out the house counting in the first three days of the second phase before starting the head count. The countrywide exercise will end on May 25. For the census, KP has been divided into 21,997 blocks.

The officials said Bannu, Kohat, Karak, Tank and Malakand protected area, Upper Dir, Lower Dir, Chitral, Swat, Kohistan, Buner and Shangla districts of KP would be covered in the second phase of census.

They said the exercise would be carried out in Bajaur, Khyber, Mohmand, Kurram, North Waziristan and South Waziristan agencies and six FRs.

According to the details, the mountainous Chitral district has been divided into 590 blocks, Upper Dir 939, Lower Dir 1,331, Swat 1,079, Shangla 404, Buner 543, Malakand 430, Kohat 672, Karak 445, Kohistan 1,651, Bannu 781 and Tank 241 blocks.

Thirteen KP districts, including Peshawar, and Orakzai Agency were covered in the first census phase, which began on March 15. An official told Dawn that the notified internally displaced persons, currently living in KP and other parts of the country, would be counted in their respective place of origins.

“The de-notified IDPs will be counted, where they currently live,” he said.

The official said Afghan nationals both registered and unregistered and living outside the registered refugee camps would be included in the category of ‘others’ mentioned in the census form. He said the census would help collect the accurate data of registered and unregistered Afghan nationals living in the country. The official said the enumerators won’t visit registered refugee camps in KP.

He said more than one million documented and a large number of undocumented Afghans lived in urban and rural areas of the country.

Published in Dawn, April 25th, 2017