Total economic units stand at 1.22cr
Nearly 3.65 lakh economic units were left out of the nationwide enumeration for the Economic Census 2024, according to a post-assessment by the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS) unveiled yesterday.
The review, conducted as a Post Enumeration Check (PEC), found that the actual number of economic units stood at around 1.22 crore, about 2.95 percent higher than the 1.18 crore counted by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) last year.
The PEC, carried out across 352 sample areas, was designed to independently assess the accuracy of the census through a sample survey.
BIDS found that the omissions were unevenly concentrated. City corporation areas recorded the highest gap at 5.99 percent, followed by urban areas at 3.9 percent.
Researchers attributed the shortfall mainly to rapid business turnover, the emergence of new ventures, and a large number of unregistered or temporary establishments, BIDS said at a dissemination seminar at its office yesterday.
Small service-oriented businesses, makeshift stalls, footpath vendors and other informal units were the most frequently missed, while registered establishments were generally captured more consistently.
The PEC also revealed significant mismatches between the BBS census and PEC responses. Fourteen percent discrepancies were observed in establishment type, 8 percent in activity type, 6 percent in ownership details and 5 percent in fire-safety information. The highest inconsistency, 32.92 percent, occurred in business registration data.
BIDS Research Director Mohammad Yunus clarified that the inconsistencies stemmed largely from misunderstandings of questions or ambiguous answers rather than deliberate misreporting.
The assessment, he noted, found no signs of motivated bias.
Planning Commission Secretary SM Shakil Akhter, who served as the project director of the census, said the quality of the enumeration depends heavily on the skills, training and access available to field workers.
"If we expect enumerators to learn a large and complex manual in just three to five days, then their training must be properly designed and adequately timed," he said.
Access restrictions were a major obstacle, he added. Enumerators were often prevented from entering garment factories, industrial units and other sensitive sites, hampering proper data collection.
"Once in the field, enumerators need free and uninterrupted access. Without that access, the source becomes unreachable from the start," he said.
"Given these constraints, achieving an omission rate of 2.95 percent is something I am actually satisfied with," he added.
Echoing the same challenges, BBS Director General Mohammed Mizanur Rahman said they conducted the economic census under extremely challenging political upheaval.
"After August (2024), the political and social environment became unstable, and many establishments closed or moved," he said.
He said undercounting was slightly higher in city corporation areas mainly because many businesses had shut down or their owners were not available during the census period. "That contributed to the gaps."
"International standards recommend completing the PEC within three months, but due to workload and circumstances, we had to do it after six months. That timing also explains some of the discrepancies."
"We aim to publish the final report by December. Most sections are ready, and we are now integrating the PEC findings," he added.
