Claims that Hunan officials had missed 10 million people in the latest census were not accurate, provincial census officials were reported as saying yesterday.
Officials told the People's Daily it was 'not totally accurate' to say millions had been left out of the fifth national census, completed last Wednesday.
They said the earlier media reports had incorrectly taken a pre-census survey as being the same as the census. The survey's findings were used only to lay the groundwork for the census and would not affect the census count.
They said the registrations were low because Hunan had a huge migrant population and about six million Hunanese worked outside the province. 'It is not the responsibility of Hunan to count these people under the census guidelines,' an official told the newspaper.
However, they acknowledged that many grassroots cadres 'did not understand census policy well' and were 'reluctant to report accurately'.
They conceded many cadres had 'interfered' in the census by collecting what were termed census fees, security fees and temporary residence fees when they registered the families and migrants from other provinces.