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National Census postponed for June next year due to admin issues and pandemic
A string of administrative issues, a delay in purchasing tablet computers, funds not being allocated as budgeted, and the COVID-19 pandemic have resulted in the Population and Housing Census scheduled for this year being postponed for next year.
Census and Statistics Department Director General P.M.P. Anura Kumara told the Sunday Times the Census would be held in June next year and the final report released after four to five months.
The Cabinet had approved Rs. 2.8 billion to cover the cost of the Census which is usually held once in ten years. Plans were underway to use digital technology for the first time to conduct the Census and 16,000 tablet computers were to be bought at the cost of Rs. 500 million for this purpose.
The department procured about 1000 tablet computers for office work in March after selecting a bidder through an internal process. The balance 15,000 tablets were for field work. The procurement process, however, for these 15,000 tablets has not yet been completed.
Among several proposals is a suggestion to use tablets from other government institutions instead of buying new ones.
During the previous government, it was proposed that the tablets the Education Ministry was planning to buy for Advanced Level students could be diverted to the Census Department. But the Ministry later informed the Department that it was not possible to allocate the tablets for Census work.
Also disrupting the Census preparations was the decision to shift the Census Department from the Ministry of Finance and bring it under the State Ministry for National Policies and Economic Affairs in early 2019.
The Finance Ministry has also not released the Rs. 2.8 billion to the Department so far, thus delaying the purchase of computers and other equipment required to strengthen the data bases and facilities in the head office and the department’s district offices. Besides, the purchasing process has also been hit by pandemic-related problems such as the shortages of goods in the market, the sudden increase in the prices and delays in imports and customs procedures.
However, Director General Anura Kumara said much of the work related to the Census had been completed. “We have completed 48% of the work required for the Census by now,” he said, recalling that the last Census held in 2011 was also postponed due to problems with regard printing material.
The Director General said more than 48,000 officials would be deployed to conduct the Census in all 14,021 Grama Niladhari Divisions covering 88,000 census blocks.
Plans for the 2021 Census were made from 2016 with officers being trained and the questionnaire being prepared.
During the previous Census, enumerators hand-wrote answers from the questionnaire, and then scanned and fed the information into a computer.
“This time we will use tablets and the Computer Assisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI) method to transfer information directly to the database of the department. “This is faster and more convenient,” Mr. Anura Kumara said.