Population data to help Municipality plan better

Manama : Manama Municipal Council will soon receive its population data which will help them plan the development of the capital better. The Council Deputy Chairman Mazen Ahmed Al Umran said that the council has requested data from Central Informatics Organisation (CIO). He said that the data is being currently categorised by CIO and it will be handed over to the council soon. According to him, the data will be of major benefit to Manama as it will help the council allocate services according to the needs of the people. 

“We have requested data from the Central information system, which comes under CIO. This is a huge amount of data so the CIO will categorize it and sort before giving it to us. The data that we requested are about the demographics, how many people live in a house, waste management needs of the area, the number of children living in the area etc. Having this kind of area specific data will help us plan for sewage, roads, parks, schools, health centers and more. Without this kind of data it is difficult to plan correctly,” he said.

He added that Manama’s population has grown rapidly in recent years. “Let me mention that Manama has got bigger as more areas have been added to the capital; Sitra was added as well as parts of Nuwaidrat and Jidhafs are now part of the capital. Currently 300,000 expatriates and 260,000 Bahrainis live in Manama - these are big numbers.”

He said that the Manama municipal council currently “does not have much” data to use in their strategic planning “We have 121 blocks in the capital and we need the data for all of the 121 blocks,” he stressed.