Jakarta residents will have to give around 15 minutes of their time in May to participate in the nation-wide 2010 census, which is held once a decade.
More than 20,000 officials will be assigned to visit houses to address several questions regarding identity and social economic conditions.
“The census will take place from May 1 to 31,” Agus Suherman, Central Bureau of Statistics (BPS) chief said Tuesday.
He, however, did not provide an exact schedule of the census, where residents are expected to be at home.
The census will record information about the country’s citizens, such as education, employment and housing.
Agus said this year’s census would be more detailed and sophisticated, with more questions and a digital map prepared for the officers.
“There are 43 variables involved this year,” Agus said, while the last census, conducted in 2000, only included 17 variables.
“In 2000, respondents were not asked about health difficulties such as vision impairments, or their first language,” Agus said.
Agus said that the statistics obtained from this year’s survey can serve many purposes and functions, for multiple institutions.
“For example, the question about everyday language can be used to improve cultural services,” he said.
Agus said that the census would ensure that every citizen’s name and address was recorded, unlike previous censuses.
“We didn’t [record names and addresses] before.
“But since it is needed for development purposes [we will record them],” he said.
The census’s outcome will be used as one of the tools in determining whether the country succeeds in achieving the targets of the Millennium Development Goals, which includes poverty alleviation and
the decreasing of the maternal mortality rate.
He added that the census would also aid the process of forming single identity numbers for citizens, aimed to improve citizen data organizing.
The data from the census will also be used for political processes, such as the regional elections.
Last year, protests about the inaccuracy of population data regarding the general elections were rife, with the voter list said to contain unsystematic data.
The city administration reportedly left out millions of eligible voters during the gubernatorial election in 2007.
Those to be questioned for the census are people who have spent at least six months in the capital, and the category would include non-Indonesian citizens, Agus said.
He added that this year, the census would use a digital map, compared to the sketched map in the 2000.
Sri Santo Budi Muliatinah, the Social Statistics Division chief at Jakarta’s bureau office, said that conducting the census in the capital had its own challenges.
“Sometimes apartment management do not allow officers to enter the building and to conduct their business,” she said.
At the trial census, held in May last year, the officers handed out question papers to apartment tenants to fill out and return.
“But only a small percentage of the papers were returned,” Sri said.
Some apartment building management only allowed officers to enter the building and conduct door-to-door questioning for a limited period of time.
This was inconvenient as several tenants may be absent, she said.
Sri also said that aside from those living in apartments, those who live in luxurious estates were also more difficult to question. (dis)
