Census on human and property damage; Pre-processing of data begins

The Department of Census and Statistics has begun the pre-processing of data of the island wide census to assess the human and property damages that occurred during the nearly three-decade long war.

The official website of the National Action Plan for the implementation of the LLRC recommendation said today that, the first stage of the data processing involves checking the completeness of coverage (that all Grama Niladhari Divisions have been enumerated) and that all completed forms have been received. In the second stage, the summaries prepared by the enumerators in the field will be checked with the data collection form and sent for data processing.

The third stage consists of a detailed checking procedure during which the internal consistency of the data will be verified. The final report will be released once the Census Department processes this data.

The Census Department launched this island wide survey on Nov. 28, 2013. It is a key recommendation of the report of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC). Recommendation 9.37b states the following: “Conduct a professionally designed household survey covering all affected families in all parts of the island to ascertain firsthand the scale and circumstances of death and injury to civilians, as well as damage to property during the period of the conflict.”

The responsibility of conducting the census and producing the report is with the Ministry of Public Administration and Home Affairs, and the Census Department.