KATHMANDU, Nov 12: The Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) organized an interaction on Monday with experts and sought their suggestions on the proposed methodology and questionnaire for the 2021 national census.
On the occasion, the participants were also briefed on the census plan and progresses made so far. CBS is planning to conduct the census in June 2021.
Presenting a working paper, CBS Deputy Director General Hem Raj Regmi informed that a complete enumeration would be carried out covering all households and sampling method will not be used unlike during the earlier two censuses that employed both complete enumeration and sampling methods.
National census to begin from May 9
Regmi also informed that a multi-modal data collection approach has been planned for the upcoming census. "We are using both computed assisted personal interviewing (CAPI) and pen-and-paper interviewing (PAPI) methods while conducting the census," Regmi said. He also said an e-census would be done for Nepalis working in various diplomatic missions abroad.
For the first time, the CBS is also formulating community questionnaire to validate the result of the family information, collecting information on access to services at the local level and assess the status of urbanization, according to Regmi.
Participants highlighted the need for providing training to supervisors and enumerators to ensure that the collected data is authentic. They also suggested recruiting enumerators on merit basis instead of the candidates' political connections.
Senior officials from the National Planning Commission (NPC), former vice chairs of the NPC, academicians from various universities, former and current staffers of the CBS, statisticians, mediapersons and representatives of donor agencies were among those participating in the interaction.
The CBS is deploying over 52,000 staffers including around 42,000 enumerators and 10,000 supervisors to conduct the survey within 15 days. The slogan for the 2021 census is “My Census My Participation”. A pilot census has been planned for February covering a total of 11,610 households from 14 districts.
For the purpose of conducting the census, a supervisory committee has been constituted under the leadership of NPC vice chair Puspa Raj Kadel while a coordination committee has been constituted with NPC member Dr Ram Kumar Phuyal as chairman.
