Pakistan census planned

Plans are underway in Pakistan for a population census -- the first in sixteen years.

Government officials are anxious to collect such information to bring voting lists up to date and to make better informed judgements in the distribution of development aid.

The census is likely to be held in the secondweek of March and would be policed by more than one-hundred thousand soldiers.

A BBC correspondent in Islamabad says that one proposal being considered is to impose a country-wide curfew on two seperate days in March for the census would be carried out.

Our correspondent says that previous attempts to hold a fair census have failed due growing polarisation between ethnic groups.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service