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CENSUS 2011: CBS in dire straits for lack of funds
KATHMANDU, NOV 14 - Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) may only have 40 percent of the estimated Rs. 1.79 billion for conducting nationwide census in the year 2011. The donor community, which has been financing the census since 1981 has yet to pledge support for the process this time around, according to CBS.
Nepal carries out census every 10 years and the last one was in 2001.
The Finance Ministry has decided to seek 60 percent aid and manage 40 percent of the budget by itself.
Director General of CBS Uttam Narayan Malla said that it is already late for aid commitment from donors as the population count is scheduled to begin on June 11, 2011. “In the past, we got aid commitments from donors two years in advance, but this is not the case now, when we are just about one-and-half-year away from the census,” he said.
He said the CBS had approached UN agencies, the European Union and the British Department for International Development (DFID) seeking support. “However, we are yet to get any commitment from them.”
The National Planning Commision has called a donors' meeting on Nov. 24 to discuss and explore fund commitments. “The government will have to foot the expenses if donors pull back,” Malla said.
Yuba Raj Pandey, secretary of NPC, however, said the CBS had not complained about resource crunch yet. “The CBS ma-nages donors' support by itself,” he said. “We can make efforts to garner their su-pport if the CBS asks us.”
The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has agreed to coordinate with donors in garnering aid for the census, according to CBS. UNFPA is supporting the CBS in its pilot census in seven districts -- Ilam, Mahottari, Jumla, Kathmandu, Syangja, Doti and Banke in January next year.
As per the CBS plan, it will reach 10,000 households of these districts during the pilot census. “This will test questionnaire, data entry procedures, problems that could arise in the field and tentative costs,” said Malla.
The CBS has planned to deploy 8,000 supervisors, 35,000 enumerators, 80 district census officers and 330 area supervisors for the census in 2011. It will also add questionnaire on maternal mortality, details about livestock and absentees.
“We are facing pressure to include more areas, but we are resisting the pre-ssure as the main objective of the census is to find the population size and places of inhabitation,” Malla said.
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