After the
Independence of Bangladesh in 1971, censuses were held in the years 1974, 1981,
1991,
2001, and
2011. The last census taken in the country was the
2011 census, which recorded a total population of 144.0 million (this figure, however, was estimated by the Bureau to have been an undercount, and the actual population was estimated to be 149.8 million). Plans were made to conduct the next census of Bangladesh in January 2021, with the master plan having been prepared in 2018. In October the following year, ৳1,761 crore were earmarked for the project by the
Executive Committee of the National Economic Council. However, due to the
COVID-19 pandemic, the
Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) was unable to conduct the census, delaying the exercise to October 2021. As the October 2021 deadline approached, the BBS still was not fully prepared to conduct the census, as the government refused to purchase 395,000
tablet computers which were meant to be used in the enumeration. The BBS had made changes to the 2018 master plan in June, shifting the method of the census from manual to digital, which was expected to reduce the cost of the operation by 11% to ৳1,575 crore. Complications regarding equipment continued until March 2022, when the government approved the purchase of the tablets. The next month, the BBS announced the new schedule for the census. ==Design==