AJK poised for 2nd round of census

By Altaf Rao in The Nation, April 25, 2017
MIRPUR (AJK)-The second round of national consensus and house listing will begin in rest of five AJK district from Tuesday (today), official sources said.
Mirpur district is amongst the five district where consensus is going to commence from Tuesday, AJK Census Commissioner Raja Tariq Mahmood told this Correspondent here on Monday.
Other four AJK districts are: Rawalakot and Haveili districts of Poonch division and Jhelum Valley and Neelam valley of Muzaffarabad division, the commissioner said.
During the first phase, census and house listing was conducted in five AJK districts from March 15, simultaneously with 53 districts across Pakistan.
He AJK government has made adequate arrangements to complete the process of Census-2017 throughout the AJK territory in collaboration with Pakistan Army, official sources said.
The census commissioner said that all necessary arrangements have been made for holding of the second phase of census in the AJK, which will be completed on May 28.
A total of 2,800 mobile staff members have been deployed for holding the scheduled census across AJK.
In first phase of the census, at least 1,900 mobile staff members, comprising officials of the AJK education and revenue department as well as Pakistan Army visited door to door in 2022 blocks in five AJK districts.
The census commissioner said that any member of a respective family would be eligible to provide required information about other numbers of his/her family to the census staffers besides the head of the concerned family.
He categorically declared that people will have to provide absolutely correct information about their families and in case of fake information, the person or family concerned head would have to face penalty of six months rigorous imprisonment and fine of Rs50,000, he warned.
The civilian staff members of the census teams would be in official green shirt with the army official, he said.
The Census Commissioner further said that the concerned family head or other responsible person will also have to provide info about the expatriates belonging to the family or any registered Afghan refugee living under any local roof. However, the number of the expatriates and Afghan refugees will not be included in the number during the census, he pointed out. The expatriates and registered / lawful Afghan refugees would continue stand as expatriate and Afghan refugee, he declared.
Five-day training to the staff has been conducted by the master trainers in Muzaffarabad.
A representative of the Census Department of Pakistan will be deputed in each AJK district to supervise the process.
It is to be noted that the national-census held in 63 districts across Pakistan besides AJK and Gilgit/Baltistan in the first phase so far, according to the official sources.
In the first phase, housing survey was also conducted in 63 districts and agencies of the country, which include 16 districts in Punjab, eight in Sindh, seven in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, seven agencies of Fata, 15 in Balochistan, and five each in AJK and GB.http://nation.com.pk/national/25-Apr-2017/ajk-poised-for-2nd-round-of-census