Muscat: A landmark count of Oman’s population will be held in December, the government announced through a Royal Decree proclamation here on Tuesday.
The general census of the population, residential buildings and commercial establishments was originally scheduled to be held during April, but was postponed to enable a more efficient and accurate count, officials said.
The mammoth exercise, which is only the third major census in Oman’s modern history, will be conducted over a 10-day period during December.
Overseeing this undertaking is the Directorate General of Statistics at the Ministry of National Economy, which is mobilising an army of enumerators, crew leaders, supervisors and other field staff, for the count.
In a significant departure from the last general census in 2003, this year’s count will be a completely high-tech affair.
Satellite imaging and Geographical Information System (GIS) technology have been employed to map out villages and towns across the breadth of the sultanate ahead of the count.
Enumerators will be armed with hand-held computers, hooked by wireless to a central server in the capital, when they fan out across the country later this year.
During the 2003 Census, Oman became the first country in the world to introduce Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) for data collection in place of traditional paper questionnaires.
PDAs loaded with digital maps and codification applications were used for the first time in the Muscat Governorate for that count and all subsequent surveys conducted by the National Economy Ministry.
