6th population census starts

The 6th Population and Housing Census started across the country on Wednesday with an eye to counting total households and population of Bangladesh.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina inaugurated the week-long census, which is being conducted digitally for the first time in the country to make it flawless and successful.
The premier opened the census at a ceremony at her official residence Ganabhaban in the city in the morning, Prime Minister's Assistant Press Secretary Md. Ashraf Siddiquee Bitu told BSS.
On the first day, enumerators counted floating and homeless people from 12:00 midnight to 6:00 am at 20,000 selected spots countrywide, according to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS).
Later, they started collecting information from households.
BBS officials say 365,697 enumerators are collecting data from across the country for the census. Each enumerator will collect data from 100 households.
The data collection of the decennial census will continue until June 21.
For the first time in Bangladesh, tabs are being used to collect information to make an automated database of the population.
On the occasion State Minister for Planning Dr Shamsul Alam led a colourful procession that started from the BBS headquarters and ended outside Science Museum at Agargaon in the city on the day.
Statistics and informatics secretary Dr Shahnaj Arefin, BBS director general Tajul Islam and project director Dildar Hossain, among others, took part in the parade.
According to the bureau, the preliminary data of the census will be published within three months after the collection of information.
The last census in 2011 counted the country's total population at 149.8 million.
The ongoing census was supposed to be done in 2021. But coronavirus and some other reasons delayed it.
Since the first one was conducted in 1974, the BBS has been carrying out this flagship census once in a decade all along.
The second census was done in 1981, the third in 1991, the fourth in 2001 and the fifth in 2011.
The BBS has kept a provision of including those who will be left out of the collection system this week.
The person can dial a hotline number (09602998877) at the BBS to include them in the census.

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