Govt gears up for census 2021

Kathmandu, December 6

The government has geared up for the National Population Census-2021. Nepal has a tradition of holding census after every 10 years. The last census was conducted in 2011.

In response to a letter by the Central Bureau of Statistics, the Ministry of Federal Affairs issued a circular to all local levels to coordinate with the concerned district statistics offices for identification of training centres. “According to Section 23 of the National Census Operation and Management Order-2019, it requires the Central Bureau of Statistics to identify and designate the venues to provide training to the human resources to be assigned in census. Therefore, all local levels are requested to coordinate with district offices of CBS for necessary arrangement of government offices, schools and public buildings for the purpose of using them as training centres,” the circular read.

CBS has prepared draft of the training manual. It aims to conduct the national census in a reliable and systematic manner by maintaining coordination and collaboration among federal, provincial and local levels and other organisations for collection, processing, analysis, publication and distribution of data related to all individuals and households of Nepal. The NCOMO states that the national census shall be conducted by the CBS, which may establish census office at provincial, district and local levels as per necessity. One or more census offices may be established in a district or local level depending on its geographical condition and population density, it says.

The CBS shall also prepare questionnaire for the census. It will come into force after publication in the Nepal Gazette. Data are collected from each household by conducting direct interview according to the approved questionnaires. The CBS may authorise the concerned enumerators deployed in the field to use paper-based questionnaire or tablet/laptop or both, for data collection. Data or personal details of employees working in Nepali missions abroad will be collected through e-census.

According to CBS, it may request the employees working in the federal, provincial and local governments to mobilise adequate human resource for national census. “The CBS shall hire persons meeting prescribed qualifications as enumerators and supervisors, for door-to-door data collection and supervision. For this purpose, a public vacancy notice shall be published by serving a deadline of 10 days for submission of applications. If adequate number of enumerators and supervisors could not be hired through the public vacancy notice, the CBS may depute the government employees for data collection and supervision,” it said.