Errors Occur in China's CensusSerious errors have led to a five-day delay in China's census starting from November 1 and originally scheduled to end on November 10.Up to 10 million people have been missed off in the headcount in central China's Hunan Province, while two million people were not registered at all in northwest China's Shaanxi Province. Also in Shaanxi, the death rate of many counties turned out to be higher than the birth rate, a statistical impossibility. The State Council is taking the matter quite seriously and issued an urgent circular last week reiterating its census policies. Under the rules, data collected should be treated as confidential and not used to weigh up the administrative merits of officials. The policies state that immigrants who have not been officially registered as temporary residents where they are staying will not face charges after the census has been carried out. Not all policies and regulations have been well implemented at grass-root levels, said Liu Changsong, deputy director of the Fifth National Census Office. Although the door-to-door collections will now take a further five days to complete, other major sectors of the census will be carried out as scheduled, according to Liu. |
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