SIALKOT, Feb 11: The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) and the Pakistan government have selected Sialkot in Punjab for jointly conducting pilot census procedures for Afghans in Pakistan.

Special teams of the UNHCR and the Pakistan government will begin the pilot census in Sialkot and one each city of three other provinces on Feb 14. DCO Syed Tahir Raza Naqvi told reporters here on Friday that all necessary arrangements had been completed in this regard.

He said the census would record vital information about every Afghan arrived in Sialkot after Dec 1, 1979. This would also provide information on their number and current activities in Pakistan.

Talking to reporters, UNHCR's census incharge Indrika Ratwatte said the final preparations for a 10-day census, underway for months, would begin in four provinces of Pakistan on Feb 14.

"We want to look at the operational procedures and see if there is a need for fine tuning before the census," he said. He said that UNHCR representative Ruud Lubbers had announced plans for the $750,000 census project during his visit to Pakistan last month.

Mr Ratwatte said that under the agreement the UNHCR had assisted nearly 2.3 million Afghans to repatriate since 2002 and a further 400,000 were expected to return under the voluntary repatriation programme in 2005.

Guenet Guebre-Christos, the UNHCR representative in Pakistan, said that the objective of the census was not to expel the Afghans. He said the information was essential for forming policies for those Afghans who would remain in Pakistan after the current tripartite agreement between the UNHCR and the governments of Pakistan and Afghanistan expired in March 2006.

He said the UNHCR and the Pakistan government agree that the voluntary repatriation of Afghans was the preferred goal under the present tripartite agreement. Participation in the census, he said, was mandatory for all Afghans who arrived in Pakistan after Dec 1, 1979.

Those stayed away from census would be excluded from a proposed subsequent registration designed to provide them with some sort of documents. The census will provide vital information to guide the Pakistan government and the UNHCR in formulating future policies on Afghans in Pakistan.