Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics on Sunday said that the country's population would go up from the preliminary figures of 14.23 crore when the final report of the Fifth Population and Household Census 2011 would be published by March 2012.
The director general of the bureau, Shahjahan Ali Mollah, at a press conference on the day said that the population of 14.23 crore was 'absolutely preliminary figures' and the number would increase in the final report as it was a trend.
He claimed that appropriate measures had been taken during the census taking lessons from past mistakes.
Shahjahan said the task of post-enumeration checks had been outsourced to the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies which carried it out in April 10-14.
'We never claimed that these are the final findings. We will correct and adjust any errors during post-enumeration checks,' he said.
Asim Kumar Dev, project director of Fifth Population and Household Census, alsospoke at the press conference.
Both the officials termed 'baseless' the United Nations Population Fund's October 2010, report State of the World Population 2010 which estimated Bangladesh's population at 16.44 crore which, it said, would reach 22 crore in 2050 at an annual growth rate of 1.4 per cent. 'The report was baseless without any methodology and source. They did not inform us about their source and methodology even after repeated requests,' said Asim Kumar.
He also said that rather UNFPA revised the figures from 16.44 crore to 14.86 crore this year.
The BBS officials admitted that 'some of the households' had been left out of the survey, as the enumerators had faced problems like not being allowed in by some households.
The planning minister, AK Khandaker, disclosed the findings of the Fifth Population and Household Census, carried out in March 15-19, at the National Economic Council on Saturday. The preliminary findings were scheduled to be published in three months after the survey.
UNFPA officials declined comments on the issue, 'We have nothing to do with the report,' said a high UNFPA official.
The official said that a UN agency relied on the data provided by the government and its report in October 2010 was based on the data provided by the authorities here. He, however, said that they had not revised the figures.
UNFPA officials said that the Bangladesh population, estimated conservatively on the basis of the fourth population census conducted in 2001, would be more than 16 crore in 2011.
The BBS officials ruled out any possibility of dispute with the UNPFA over the preliminary figures of the fifth census.
The first population census in the subcontinent was conducted in 1872. Since then, censuses have been conducted almost regularly every 10 years. This year's census is the fifth since Bangladesh's independence.
After independence, the population and household censuses were conducted in 1974, 1981, 1991, and 2001.
According to the fourth census, conducted in 2001, the number of households was around 2.54 crore
and the population was 13.05 crore, according to the revision.
Source : New Age
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