DUSHANBE, July 24, 2010, Asia-Plus  -- 27 million somoni have been allocated for the 2010 population and housing census that will take place from September 21-30.

Ms. Bakhtiya Muhammadiyeva, the director of the Agency for Statistics under the President of Tajikistan, told reporters on July 23 that financing of preparatory works for conducting this important event began in 2006 already.

“580,200 somoni were allocated in 2006, 1.5 million somoni in 2007, 3 million somoni in 2008, and 6.5 million somoni in 2009,” said Muhammadiyeva, “A total amount allocated from the national budget for conducting the population and housing census is 38.5802 million somoni (equivalent to some 9 million U.S. dollars).”

According to her, more than 30,000 people, including observers, consultants and others, will be involved in conducting the population census this year.

She noted that the census of housing is conducted in Tajikistan for the first time.  “The housing census is conducted for the purposes of studying living standards of the population, housing conditions, and creation of the housing stock in the republic as a whole.”     

For Tajikistan, it will be the ninth population census (In Tajikistan, the latest census was conducted in 2000).