Azerbaijan, Baku /corr. Trend I.Khalilova / The State Statistics Committee of Azerbaijan plans to hold population census in a test regime in Azerbaijan's district of Shemakha, the Committee's Chairman Arif Veliyev, said at press-conference on 29 October.
Preference was given to Shemakha because there is city, villages, mountains and plains on its territory. It will promote to remove possible obstacles during population census. The population census is planning to hold in 2009.
According to Valiyev, the problem is to improve the urban housing. "Unfortunately, there has not been state body to control the process. Some heads of local Executive Administrations in region suppose the process is necessary only for population census, therefore, the urban housing was put in order in 1999," Valiyev said.
However, Ramiz Mehtiyev Executive Power's head ordered to complete numbering of houses and naming streets to 1 July 2008.
Presently, due to increase the number of new constructed buildings the old ones became useless. Numbering is necessary during census of population. During population census territories of regions are divided on census area.
The State Real State Register should commence the development of maps of cities and districts, but this process late because of absence of houses numbers.
In compliance with action plan adopted by the Ministers Cabinet, by 1 March 2008, the State Real State Register is committed to design schemes of cities, villages and settlements, the State Committee on Land and Cartography the schematic maps of districts in the scale of 1:100000, and the scale of 1:50000 in the densely populated areas at the funds allocated for the State Committee out of the public budget.
The expenses in connection with census of population will be more than the last census held in 1999, Veliyev said. The previous census acts cost nearly $2.5mln, because the population of Azerbaijan in 1999 was 7.9mln people, and in 2009 it is expected to reach 8.7mln people.
The second reason of increase in expenses increase is related to the rise of quantity of issues within the census from 17 to 25-26. "With this respect, load of people, who are in charge of data collection, will increase. " But it is impossible to put big load these people, because they will be almost unable to cope with calculation. If in 1999 a person was to carry out collection of data on 450 people, now this indicator should be reduced to 400," the head of the State Committee said.
Approximate expenses for census will comprise $3 or 4mln. The census expected to begin on 12 April 2009, and will register people exist until the commencement of the census, Veliyev said.
According to the State Committee, on 1 October 2007 the population of Azerbaijan grew by 0.8% to 8.603mln people. 4.329.7mln of them are men, and 4.363.3 are women.