After verifying the fifth census data, Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS) has said the country’s population primarily stands at 14.8 crore. During the verification BIDS found that 3.97 percent people had been left out in the Population and Housing Census, 2011.
This means that around 57 lakh people did not come under the enumeration process of the latest census. If the uncounted people are added to the BBS enumeration, the country’s population could stand at around 14.8 crore, BIDS Director General Mustafa K Mujeri said at a press conference yesterday.
The press conference was held at the BIDS conference room in the capital to share the BIDS findings.
Shahjahan Ali Mollah, director general of Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS), which conducts the census, was present at the conference, among others.
Shahjahan said the 3.97 percent “net error” would be adjusted in the final count. “We have not figured out the exact number yet. But the number will definitely go above 14.8 crore.”
“We cannot say whether it will cross 15 crore,” he said in reply to a query.
The BBS chief also said final checking and editing were underway and the final report would be published by June.
The BBS on July 16 last year published the preliminary report of the 2011 census, putting the country’s population at 14.23 crore, 1.8 crore more than it was a decade ago.
It put the annual growth rate at 1.34 percent and said population density was 964 per square kilometre, up from 834 in 2001.
The report triggered huge uproar as the numbers did not tally with the figures projected by different United Nations agencies and government bodies.
The government then assigned BIDS with the task of post-enumeration check (PEC).
At the press conference, the BIDS DG said the net error figure was smaller than in the 2001 census in which 4.98 percent people were left out.
For the PEC, BIDS collected samples from 33,600 households of 280 enumeration areas — 140 rural and 140 urban. The enumerators collected information from every household of the selected enumeration areas.
According to the BIDS report, 5.26 percent people of the urban municipality were not included in the census. It was 3.79 percent in rural areas and 3.85 percent in city corporation areas.
The census in 2001 had put the country’s population at 12.43 crore.
-With The Daily Star input
