KARACHI: The Sindh cabinet will design on Monday (today) its future course of action vis-a-vis the mammoth activity of census scheduled to begin in the middle of March, officials said on Sunday.

Part of the heavy agenda the provincial cabinet is meant to mull over is the census activity with discussion on several key legislations, including the religious seminaries bill.

Officials said the Sindh government had already formed separate committees at divisional, district, and taluka levels, in the province to coordinate with the federal authorities in connection with the population and housing census.

They said freezing of administrative boundaries had already been initiated while delimitation and geo-coding census areas were in progress.

Similarly, appointment of provincial census commissioners has been completed while coordination meeting with provincial functionaries will continue till next month. Officials said the appointment of census district officers was in progress.

Besides, to reassess the requirement of census material and its procurement was in process. They added that printing of house listing questionnaires and other forms, etc, too, had been completed except for the fresh requirement.

Officials said field operation plan and training manuals had been printed and process initiated for selection of media houses and development of publicity material.

“We have identified the topics and a publicity campaign will soon begin, which will continue till May,” said an official.

He added that letters had been sent to the provincial government for the establishment of a census office with the census district officers (CDOs).

A series of sensitisation workshops, including for the political representatives, at provincial, divisional and district levels have begun and will continue till March.

According to the activity calendar finalised by the authorities, the appointment of field staff, including enumerators, circle supervisors and charge superintendents, has begun while the training of master trainers and trainers has partially been completed. The training of the field staff will begin soon.

The chief secretary has already notified the divisional, district and taluka committees.

Published in Dawn, January 16th, 2017