Census-takers inflated the population of some Turkish towns by counting tombstones during Sunday's national census in a bid to get more state aid for local administrations, a Turkish newspaper said Thursday.
Under Turkish law, municipalities are allocated 25 million liras (about 36 dollars) per person living in the town.
The mass-circulation Hurriyet said the head of Turkey's state statistics institute, Sefik Yildizeli, had confirmed the ruse which was uncovered when statisticians looked at preliminary results and noticed huge population increases in some towns since the 1997 census.
Yildizeli told Hurriyet: "Unfortunately this is true. Linking state aid for municipalities to the population of towns unfortunately led to this problem."
He said an unbelievable increase in the population of some towns and provinces in eastern and southeastern regions had been noticed. Both regions are among the country's most underdeveloped.
"For example the population of Bitlis (in eastern Turkey) was about 330,000 in the 1997 census. It has now gone up to 560,000," he said.
"The Bitlis governor has intervened and officials are currently inspecting the figures," Yildizeli added.
He cited similar problems in five other cities, including an unidentified one from Turkey's urban and relatively well-off west.
But Yildizeli insisted that Sunday's census would still yield an accurate figure on Turkey's population, despite the glitches.
"My colleagues have been out in the field for the past month. We can easily make projections on how many people live in which town," he said.
On Sunday, thousands of census-takers went door-to-door to collect demographic data. Residents were forced to stay indoors under a much-criticized 14-hour curfew.
The final census results are expected to be announced in six weeks.
Meanwhile a prosecutor in the central Turkish city of Sivas has sought a six-month jail term against 51 people who breached the curfew.
Four primary school pupils and three high-school students were among the defendants, charged with "disobeying the orders of the authorities," Anatolia news agency said.
The schoolchildren said they were detained by police after going outside to play football.
About 1,500 people across the country were caught by police breaching the ban for which there is a prison penalty of up to six months -- ANKARA (AFP)
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