THE country is having a digital census for the first time in national history with the intention of getting accurate data on population. The Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) is also asking enumerators to collect accurate and complete data in each case. However, being an enumerator myself, I firmly believe that getting accurate data will not be possible for a variety of reasons.

I do not know about the others, but I, and my colleagues, have been posted in a block/area where 99 per cent people belong to middle and lower-middle classes. Whenever we visit their homes, the head of the family is seldom there. The remaining family members do not know even the academic level of their children.

Generally, family members do not come out, and when they do come out, they are almost always uncooperative and reluctant to provide CNICs because of the security situation prevailing in the country.

There have been instances in which CNICs have been used for undesirable activities, SIM card activation and seeking bank details. The reluc-tance of the families to share CNICs, as such, is not misplaced.

We, as enumerators, really have nothing to convince the families with that their information will remain confi- dential. Almost 75pc households do not have the CNIC of the family head present. Other family members do not have CNICs and B Forms.

In most of the cases, this is because they live below poverty line or they have just shifted from nearby villages owing to flash floods last year. They even cannot tell their actual age and give the information purely on assumptions.

Owing to floods, poverty and hyper- inflation, every person we visit believes that we are doing some survey and would provide them stipends or funds or would help them repair their damaged houses. Assuming this, people mention every person in the family as jobless or looking for work.

People have already been living in abject poverty and such questions further make them doubtful and stressed.

When they are asked about the ownership of the house, they tell us they live in a rented house even if it is their own house. They try to hide the facilities they have, such as electricity, Sui gas, TV, internet, assuming that by disclosing such information they might lose the chance to qualify for the ‘funds’ that the government, they think, will be providing to those who do not have such utility services.

There should have been at least proper planning, campaign through mainstream and social media, posters, pamphlets, TV commercials before the census. In the absence of such campaigns, people do not know what the whole thing is all about.

Besides, there are a number of additional issues that have made people as well as the enumerators fed up with the whole process.

For example, one is needed to put house details of the same building again and again for different families living in the same house. We need to have identity details, including work/profession, of every person aged between zero and 99.

Block distribution is also absurd. One enumerator has 400 plus households, while someone else has only 40, but wages are equal for both.

Things could have been better had the PBS done its spade work properly instead of blaming teachers for not following standard operating procedures (SOPs) and doubting accuracy of their work.

Census staff (teachers) still make sure that all the people get counted and data is accurate. If the PBS does not trust them, it should simply not hire them. Their primary job is to teach and not to go knocking at the doors for hours and performing a task which is actually not part of their responsibilities.

Farooque Ahmed Domki
Jacobabad

Published in Dawn, April 3rd, 2023