Pakistan: Sindh to use 60,000 polio workers to build database on socio-economic status of people

Karachi: The Sindh government has planned to utilise the services of over 60,000 frontline polio eradication workers workers to survey some 7.8 million houses in the province in order to determine the socio-economic status of its adult occupants for building a social registry.

The decision to this effect was reached at a meeting chaired by Sindh Chief Secretary (CS) Syed Mumtaz Ali Shah here at Sindh Secretariat.

The meeting decided to engage the polio workers for a door-to-door survey to gather data about socio-economic status of 28.34 million people in the province having age 18 years and above.

A social registry number will be issued to every person who would participate in the forthcoming survey in the province.

The polio workers will use a questionnaire to conduct the household survey on the door-to-door basis.

The CS said the Sindh government had been planning to build a provincial-level database containing information about the socio-economic status of the people.

He said the government had sensed the need of having a social registry for extending economic relief to people of the province during the recent episode of coronavirus emergency. He said the presence of the social registry would make sure that such relief packages were executed by the government in a transparent and effective manner.

The CS mentioned that the Sindh cabinet had given approval to spend a sum of Rs350 million to build the social registry.

The meeting was also informed that a pilot project had been successfully completed to build the social registry in 12 union councils of Karachi.

The CS said that a public awareness campaign should be launched through media before launching the door-to-door survey. He said the polio workers should be given special training for the purpose.