Bangladesh launches digital population, housing census Wednesday

Bangladesh's 6th population and housing census is set to begin from 12pm Wednesday (15 June), which will be conducted digitally for the first time in the country.

Meanwhile Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) has completed all preparation following the United Nations (UN)-set three types counting method – de facto, de jure and modified de facto.

State Minister for Planning Shamsul Alam said this in a press conference, held at the National Economic Council (NEC) conference hall on Tuesday.

He said that around 3.70 lakh enumerators will collect the data countrywide from 15-21 June, for planned development of the country.

He urged all to cooperate with the enumerators to enroll in the population census which is a very important integrated planning and development of the people.

Alam said a huge preparation has been taken to collect information of people in 35 criteria so that the government can make decisions for different state services based on this data.

Replying to a query the state minister said the data of all citizens will be preserved securely and without BBS none can access the server of data or distorted the data.

The BBS has completed a trial of information collection process for the enumerators in several phases and constructed a census area for each 100 households. 

Training and technology adoption for digital data collection has also been completed to do the huge work in a prescribed time across the country which will be monitored digitally by mobile device management (MDM) and Computer Assisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI).

Main objectives of census population and housing are – calculating the total population by counting the members of each house and families, determining the number of houses/dwellings in the country; collection of data for adoption of overall development plan, providing information for determining constituencies in local and national elections; and providing information aimed at ensuring equitable distribution of national resources, said BBS.

According to the BBS, through population and household census 2022, all common households of the country, institutional households, floating/homeless population, number and type of households, household ownership, main source of drinking water, toilet facilities, electricity facilities, main source of cooking fuel, economic activities.

Besides, information related to foreign remittances will be collected. The enumerators also provide demographic socio-economic information of the members living in the household, such as age, gender, relationship with the household head, marital status, religion, disability, education, work, training, mobile phone and internet usage, bank/mobile banking account, ethnicity, nationality, self-districts etc information will collect in this census.

The first population census in Bangladesh was conducted in 1974. Subsequently, the population and housing censuses were held again in 1981, 1991, 2001, and 2011.