The third census on slum and floating population began at zero hour today (April 25) in all the city corporation areas across the country using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Map. The Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) is conducting the census. It will continue until May 2.
BBS organised a press briefing Thursday in this connection at its auditorium in the city. Statistics and Informatics Division (SID) secretary Nojibur Rahman briefed the journalists.
The 'Census of Slum Areas and Floating Population 2014' will be implemented at a cost of Tk 93.20 million, said the BBS officials.
As many as 6500 enumerators started collecting field level data from 12:00 am on April 25 to count the number of floating people. They will go to slums from 6:00 o'clock in the morning.
A total of 1150 supervisors, 315 zonal staff, 1302 district coordinators and seven divisional coordinators will carry out census. The census result will be published in December this year.
In reply to a question BBS Director General (DG) Golam Mostafa Kamal said according to unofficial data there are 13,920 slums in the country. Out of the number more than 6000 slums are in Dhaka while about 3000 slums are in Chittagong. Unofficial data further shows total slum population is 1.4 million in the country.
The government first carried out a partial slum census in four major cities - Dhaka, Chittagong, Khulna and Rajshahi - in 1985-86. The first full slum census was conducted across the country in 1997. A survey on food security situation of the slum dwellers was conducted in 2006.
According to the 1997 census, 1.0 per cent population out of the total 120 million of the country lived in slums and 0.1 per cent was landless.
In that census it was also found that there were 2,991 slums in four major city corporations, where 1.39 million people lived. There were 1,000 slums in the Dhaka city at that time.
The main objectives of the census are to determine the number of slums, households, population according to age and sex, socio-economic status of slum dwellers, demographic characteristics, basic and major reasons for migration to the slums, major districts of origin, information on the landlessness of slum dwellers, relevant information on housing of slum dwellers, information related to education, profession and environment etc.
The government allocated some Tk 5.0 million in the FY 2012-13 for the census, and will disburse Tk 71.59 million in the FY 2013-14 and Tk 16.60 million in the FY 2014-15.
Nojibur Rahman said the present census is a demonstration of the various people-oriented development approach and poor-friendly programmes of the government. Four communities are the targets of these census--- policymakers, researchers, media and common people.
BBS has formed district level permanent census committees. Two pre-tests were conducted in Comilla and Mirpur as part of the census. The census will collect information on 22 issues by asking 39 questions. Enumerators will collect data from floating people at various buildings, railway station, park but passengers are not covered in this census.
