Enumerators struggle to deal with challenges in census data gathering.

KARACHI -- Enumerators from the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) going door to door to collect data for the population census have been facing a number of issues coming in the way of their work.

Dawn has talked to many enumerators and the common complaint emerged is that people are not cooperating with them.

'They may also be right about not trusting a stranger asking for personal information. But they don't even cooperate after we present them with proof of our identity,' said a member of a census team. 'They say that they see messages on WhatsApp and other social media warning them against sharing personal information with anyone,' he added.

'We are all teachers - government officials. Doesn't something about us or about our demeanour tell them we are not thugs,' he said.

Another census female official complained about the tablets they had been provided with. 'They are either faulty or running on some faulty system. The system crashes after every half an hour. Then we have to reboot,' she said.

Technical glitches, people's reluctance to share information make task difficult

'Even if we need to go upstairs in an apartment building, the system crashes. It crashes on the first floor itself. It is so frustrating,' she said, adding that she had to request the residents of buildings to kindly come downstairs to provide their data.

'And that is not easy because people are very sceptical anyway and then asking them to come downstairs to meet us is close to impossible,' she said. 'And it is not that just my tablet might be malfunctioning. Other colleagues are also facing similar issues with the system,' she added. Yet another official shared that he was himself not sure what he was doing. 'I can't blame those who have trust issues. We are also being asked to collect data from shopkeepers in...