HYDERABAD, April 5: House count started across Sindh on Tuesday in the absence of a provincial census commissioner and complaints about census staff shortage from parts of Nawabshah.

Sindh government, according to provincial chief secretary Abdul Subhan Memon, has sent names of some officials to the federal government for appointment of the provincial census commissioner. However, a notification, to be issued by the establishment division in this regard, was still awaited.

The process of house count would continue till April 19. Every taluka and cantonment board is to be treated as a census district during the exercise. Minor complaints by enumerators are reported to census authorities.

According to assistant census commissioner, Asif Saleem,

Hyderabad has five census districts -- four of its talukas and one Cantonment Board Hyderabad (CBH) - with 720 blocks.

Each taluka has been divided into blocks with City taluka having 720 blocks, Latifabad 614 blocks, Qasimabad 174 blocks, Hyderabad rural 357 and CBH 90. Around 200 to 225 houses are said to be located in each block of urban area and between 175 to 200 in rural area.

The staff is mostly engaged from the education department and, in case of shortage, staff from revenue or other agencies are also assigned duties.

According to one report, around 1,600 employees are to discharge their duties in house listing operation. They are to work under charge and circle supervisors. Each charge has five or more circles.

They would be paid according to their pay scales, except for enumerators, who would be paid Rs3,000 for a census block. Those working in BPS-17 or above are to work as charge superintendents and those in BPS-16 as circle supervisors. Employees who are in BPS-6 to 12 are to work as enumerators.

In Nawabshah, house listing started from the residence of senior PPP leader Hakim Ali Zardari in the Society area.

Reliable sources told Dawn that more than 50 officials deputed for census remained absent from their duties on the very first day of Census and were using politicians' influence for removal of their names from duties which may affect the census.

In Khairpur, DCO Mohammad Abbas Baloch, along with the house-listing team, started the house-listing by writing the number on a house in Saida Goth at Sachal Sarmast Library road.

The district administration held a meeting on Monday evening about the house-listing operation. The meeting declared Kingri, Gambat, Sobhodero and Nara as sensitive areas and decided that the house-listing teams would carry out work in such sensitive points with the help of police.

The meeting was told that there would be need of police help particularly in flood-affected areas and the houses located along the Indus River.

On the other hand, activists of the nationalist parties took out rallies in the city and other parts of the district on motorcycles and distributed hand-bills among the people which also contained sample of the house-listing census form for general information of public.

Chief Secretary of Sindh Abdul Subhan Memon visited the house census work in Qambar. DCO Allah Ditto Shar briefed him regarding the census work in seven talukas of the district. He said that Sindh government has sent names for appointing provincial census commissioner to the federal government and hoped that commissioner will be appointed by today (Tuesday).

He urged people to inform the control room about any kind of complains they have in this regard. The vigilance teams were constituted at district and taluka level in the province and assigned to supervise overall process while district control rooms were established in all the DCO offices in the province.