Population Census
Data Collection A Great Challenge

By Ganesh Shakya

THE 10th National Population Census is starting from 10th of June, 2001. The first population census in Nepal was conducted in the year 1911. Since then it is being carried out every ten years. The last population census was carried out in 1991.

Significance

Population census has it’s own significance. First of all, it is a big and expensive national project which needs plenty of resources like time, manpower and the budget. Furthermore, the statistics as collected in the census are the basic information for planning the entire socio-economic development segments of the country. The researchers, policy makers and the planners have to play with such data for a long period of time i.e. for a decade. Therefore, the outcome of the census must be result-oriented and should be an important input to the country to form successful and sustainable plans and programmes.

It is not only an expensive project but also a challenging task for the nation to conduct the census. For planners and policy makers, data is the only basic source to determine the sectorial development priority. In accurate data create problems in the entire development process of the country. Hence, the concerned organisation should be well prepared to get accurate data from the respondents.

According to the Secretariat of the Population Census, all the necessary preparation has been made for the census. Special attention has been given while developing the questionaire and some changes were made in order to check the repetition of the weakness that had been witnessed in past censuses. After consulting with different related agencies, the questionnaire were pre-tested in Dhankuta, Mahotari, Kathmandu and Bajura districts.

Like in the past, the same "Modified De Jure Method" is to be used for data collection in this 10th population census too. According to this method, information is collected from each and every household. The preliminary work like listing and indexing of the households has already been initiated from last 14th of May.

The biggest problem associated with survey work is to collect accurate data. The most important thing is to get correct answer to the question asked by the enumerator which is not possible without a keen cooperation of the respondents. Therefore, the respondents are the key persons of the survey.

Problems abound right from the respondents. First of all, most of them do not understand the value and meaning of census. So, they don’t want or can not provide the correct information. Those who understand the value do not show the interest. They try as far as possible to escape from the enumerators. Those who responds to the questions also hide certain facts for fear of unveiling their privacy and some provide false information. We have also another bitter experience that some of them leave the question incomplete and go away from the enumerators.

In most of the rural areas, people are found not being interested to respond to the surveyors. Their interest have been killed because they have had responded many people from different sectors and they have not found any benefit . In fact, they want immediate and direct returns irrespective of the long term impact of the study.

Whether one admits or not, these, situation are conspicious in our society. The major constraint behind this critical situation is lack of education. A long and tedious question, dealing with unskilled enumerators and the over confusing questions are another technical constrains.

Another problem of the census is associated with lack of the skilled manpower. Enumerators play a significant role in the census because they are the only manpower who work in the field and directly deal with the respondents. The collection of data whether true or false completely depends upon them. A simple mistake or negligence censes a big harm to the nation.

In past censuses, many comments were made against the enumerators. Mainly being fillings the forms in a room or under a tree and filling the forms with data whatever appeared in their mind were the major comments. These type of action should not be repeated in the coming sensus. For this, each respondent must be careful and sensitive. A careful and frequent supervision is equally important in order to check the misleading. Above all, the enumerators are highly expected to be an honest, dedicated and committed to their duties and responsibilities.

The media has reflected that different organisations have shown their interest to this census. Mostly, the organisations related to religious groups and the ethnic groups have been found more interested in this matter. They had organised different meetings, talk programmes, interaction programmes with an aim to urge the concerned people to cooperate the field workers. Of course, such type of endeavour will sure helps collect the correct information.

It has also been learnt from the media that the Secretariat is using sample count in this census in addition to full count method. The data which are difficult to estimate and highly essential, information will be collected in full count method and the rest information will be collected on sample count method. Statistically, census is a complete enumeration process of the object in the universe. Therefore, sample count should not be introduced. But, the secretariat justified it with the past experience that there was no distinct difference between preliminary estimates and the actual data after processing.

Challenges

These are some great challenges associated with data collection procedure that government has to come up with the necessary strategies to address such challenges. For result oriented outcome, all the respondents should provide correct and complete information without hiding anything and whether the information they have given are correctly filled up or not in the form. It helps preventing the data manipulation by the enumerators and also checks the wrong entry. The enumerators should also use their inteligentsia so that they could obtain clear and the complete information from the respondents. Finally, all the people concerned should take the big national project as their own project and do their duties without any selfishness.

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