Bangladesh population census ends


Muktasree Chakma Sathi

The fifth national population and household census ended on Saturday without reaching all the households.

The Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics secretary, Riti Ibrahim, in the afternoon

said, 'We have come to know that a number of households have been left out. We are considering the matter seriously and will send enumerators as soon as we receive complaints.'

She said although the official census would end by midnight, enumerators would continue working for three to four more days to cover all the households.

As for allegations regarding non-payment of training allowance to the enumerators by some senior officials,

Riti said that there might be some such cases.

She said that the BBS office cane to know that some enumerators had attended the training but did not do any enumeration. Some areas officials might have decided that the training allowance would be paid to them after the census.

She blamed the media for not doing enough to create awareness of the census among the people.

'Even after providing payment, we failed to make media houses understand that the census advertisement needed to be published prominently,' she said.

The first population census in the sub-continent was conducted in 1872. Since then, census has been conducted almost regularly every 10 years. This year's census is the fifth since the country's independence.

After the independence, population and household census was conducted in 1974, 1981, 1991 and 2001. According to the fourth census, the number of households was about 2.54 crore and the population was 12.43 crore.

The Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics engaged 3.10 lakh enumerators to collect data about the citizens and the households. The five-day population census 2011 began with the counting of floating people a minute after midnight past March 14.

Read the original story on the daily New Age


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