Russian police to be put on intensified service regime on eve of census

In October, in connection with the carrying out of an all-Russia census, the personnel of the Russian Interior Ministry is to be put on the intensified service regime, head of the central census commission of the Interior Ministry of the Russian Federation Nikolai Pershutkin told RIA Novosti.

He noted that by 30 per cent more of guards of order than usual will protect order in the streets from October 8th to 16th. All in all, more than 200,000 law-enforcers will ensure security during this period. They will work 12 hours a day without days-off, Pershutkin said.

According to him, two prime tasks will be set to policemen in these days - to guard the premises of census stations and to ensure security of census-takers.

The police are not going to provide armed guards for each census-taker, he noted. A district inspector will accompany census-takers only to so-called unsafe apartments.

Furthermore, policemen will shoulder the holding of the census in the Interior Ministry troops, at closed facilities, in pre-trial detention centres, and in centres for neglected-children care. The Interior Ministry personnel will also help the statistics bodies hold the census of vagabonds and neglected children.

Pershutkin noted that over 50 per cent of Russian citizens pointed out in special sociological polls that the question of personal security during the holding of the census worries them most of all. In this connection he recalled that census-takers would come to the population directly for questioning and filling the questionnaires.

Besides that, a census-taker will come to 10 per cent of Russian inhabitants on a day from October 17th to 21th to check the correctness of the poll held. After this time census-takers will not visit flats, Pershutkin stressed.

Every census-taker must carry an identification card of a census-taker which is valid only if he or she shows the passport, he went on to say. Before the beginning of the census, local mass media are to publish the telephones of the census stations 'where it is possible to make sure if your visitor is really authorised to carry out the census in your district", Pershutkin said.