Census report not final

Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) has said the population count, 14.23 crore, in the preliminary census report will be verified to get a more accurate figure.
Cross-checking, verification and adjustments will be done to get the final figure, said BBS Director General Shahjahan Ali Mollah on Sunday at a press conference organised to dispel the confusions centring the preliminary results of the country's fifth census.
Following adjustments, the final count might see a three to seven percent increase on the preliminary figures as was the case in the past, he said.
The fifth census conducted on March 15 to 19 has been questioned as its results did not tally with bi-yearly projections of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs.
United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in a report in 2010 said the country had 16.44 crore population that year.
Much of the confusions resulted from the UNFPA report, said the BBS director general.
"We never accepted the figure given in the UNFPA report," said Ashim Kumar Dey, census director of the BBS. The report was vague and did not disclose any sources or methodologies adopted to project the population.
BBS officials said the preliminary results unveiled on Saturday are not entirely accurate.
Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS) will conduct the post-enumeration check to verify the preliminary results, said Shahjahan.
BIDS, an autonomous research organisation, picked 280 random sample areas across the country and collected the information previously collected by the BBS for the census.
The preliminary census results will be crosschecked against BIDS results and then adjustment will be done.
BBS officials hope that the final population count would be revealed in September. And a full and comprehensive analysis on different population indicators including age groups, occupations, urban-rural population ratios will be completed by next March.
According to BBS officials, the preliminary population count of the 1981 census was 10.63 crore which rose to 11.14 crore after verification and adjustment. In 1991, the preliminary results had increased by 4.96 percent in the final count.