GUJRAT: Additional Deputy Commissioner (General) Tauqeer Ilyas Cheema has been assigned as the focal person for spearheading the village census in coordination with the assistant commissioners of three tehsils of the district.

The ninth village census will be launched across the country from January in three phases. In the first phase, it will be conducted in Punjab and Sindh. The census has been launched by the planning and development section of the Federal Bureau of Statistics during which data regarding agricultural land, livestock, housing facilities, resources of irrigation to agri lands, health, education, sports, community infrastructure, industrial units, natural calamity, natural resources, sanitation, employment opportunities, tourism and other such factors will be collected.

The union council staff concerned as well as revenue officials and others of the land revenue department have been engaged to conduct the exercise.

A village census has to be conducted every five years, while the current drive is being conducted after 10 years.

Training of UC secretaries, patwaris in Gujrat tehsil to be held from Jan 1 to 3

An official source said the second phase of the campaign would be launched in the warm areas of Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa whereas the third and final phase would involve the cold areas of the two provinces as well as Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan.

Training for the field staff on how to conduct the census will be launched from Jan 1 and every deputy commissioner has been assigned head of the overall activity in his respective district and the assistant commissioner concerned will head the drive in his tehsil.

Tauqeer Ilyas Cheema told Dawn that the training of secretaries of union councils and patwaris in Gujrat tehsil would be held from Jan 1 to 3, from Jan 4 to 6 in Kharian and on Jan 7 in Sarai Alamgir.

He said that a meeting to review the preparations for the census had been held a few days ago wherein it was decided that the agriculture, livestock and other departments would assist the field staff in the survey.

The Gujrat district administration has set a target of Jan 15 to complete the census.

Published in Dawn, December 23rd, 2019