Population now nearly 17 crore

Bangladesh's population stands at 16.98 crore finally after a post-enumeration check of the government's preliminary survey conducted by the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS).

Earlier in July last year, the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) published preliminary findings of the "Population and Housing Census 2022", which showed that the country's population is 16.51 crore excluding the expatriates.

BIDS was tasked to conduct a post-enumeration check of the BBS census data.

The net coverage error was lower this time than in previous surveys in 2011 and 2001, which means BBS's technical standard has been sharpened, said Binayak Sen, director general of BIDS.

The average error rate or under coverage of the BBS survey data is 2.75 percent all over the country, according to the BIDS evaluation report.

In the previous preliminary survey in 2011, the error rate was 3.97 percent whereas it was 4.98 percent in 2001.

The error rate in rural areas is 2.54 percent and in urban areas is 3.19 percent, said Mohammad Yunus, a senior research fellow at BIDS.

The error rate in urban places is higher than in rural areas because most urban population are not at home during the day.

The country's total male population is 8.40 crore and the female population is 8.56 crore, according to the adjusted BIDS error rate.

This was the sixth population and housing census in the country after the independence, according to Shahanaz Arefin, secretary of the statistics and informatics division of the planning ministry.

The project related to the census is still ongoing and it will continue until 2024. BBS will publish a total of 133 different reports on the census, she said.

Only two of the reports have so far been published including the one shared yesterday.

Next week BBS will disclose the final data of the 2022 census based on the BIDS enumeration check, she added.

Shamsul Alam, the state minister for planning, urged BBS to publish its different reports on time so that the government can use those for various purposes.

According to the preliminary report of the Population and Housing Census 2022, the growth rate came down to 1.22 percent from 1.46 percent in 2011.

The rate was 2.84 percent when the second census was conducted in 1981.