Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives Asad Umar on Tuesday unveiled the roadmap for the seventh digital population and housing census, stating that the final results of the digital census will be announced by December and subsequent elections will be based on the results.
The minister announced that the government will conduct a pilot test run of the census to test the process for risk management and disaster recovery in May/June 2022.
“The main fieldwork will be conducted from September to December while post sample enumeration will be conducted in November,” stated Umar.
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He said, “in today’s era of modern technology it was vital to hold the census more often compared to the past when the census used to be held with a huge gap of 15 to 18 years.”
The minister regretted that a foundational process, which was the basic pillar of the country’s planning and development, was not given due importance in the past.
“Without a transparent and timely conduction of population census, the resources’ distribution amongst various areas of the country will not be ensured,” he added.
The minister furthered that in order to make the exercise successful, the coordination of the provinces was instrumental.
The PBS management has been asked to share details regarding the seventh population census with the media to ensure transparency and to identify any drawbacks.
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Responding to a question, the minister said that the digital system will be completely secure as it will not be internet-based. Moreover, to further ensure security, all relevant stakeholders, including the IT Ministry, National Telecom Corporation (NTC) and NRTG have been taken on board.
Umar stressed the importance of the census, stating that it is a constitutional requirement to hold elections on the basis of the latest population and housing census.
To a question with respect to the opposition’s call for a long march and no-confidence vote in the parliament, the minister said the government did not take the opposition’s stance seriously because they have “failed in their designs multiple times already”.
First of its kind digital census
In conversation with the media before inaugurating the National Census Coordination Centre (N3C) at the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS), the minister said that the government’s plan to hold a digital census by utilising modern technology will be a first of its kind for Pakistan. He assured the system will be efficient and ensure transparency and data accuracy.
Umar also mentioned that an amount of Rs5 billion had been allocated for the census during the current year’s budget, while the remaining budget will be allocated in the upcoming fiscal year.
He added that approximately Rs10 billion will be spent on the procurement of software and hardware for conducting the digital census.
Chief Statistician PBS, Dr Naeem Zafar, during his brief on the planning and operation of the upcoming digital census, said the N3C setup will be headed by the Deputy Chairman Planning Commission alongside provincial and regional representatives and law enforcement agencies.
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Dr Zafar said the Census Support Centres were being established in all 614 rehsils of the country to conduct the first-ever digital census and ensure the process is conducted without complications.
“The dedicated support centres at the tehsil levels will ensure 24/7 availability of [the] system, the end-user and field enumerator support,” Dr Zafar stated adding that, “the census support centres will be equipped with online monitoring dashboards and act as control rooms and complaint inquiry offices.”
Timeline
Briefing on the road map for the seventh population and housing census, the chief statistician said the exercise of appointment of staff will be held in March 2022, while training of field staff for the pilot will be done from April 15 to 30.
Similarly, the pilot census (2000 blocks approximately) will be held from May 15 to June 15, while the enumeration work (first step-self enumeration) will be done from July 15 to 30.
The first block for house listing operation will be held from August 1 to3 and the operation for the second block will be held from 16-18 of the same month.
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Face-to-face interviews in the first block will be held from August 4-5 and the interviews for the second block will be held from August 19 to 31.
Moreover, the data processing and summary results will be finalised from September to October and the post enumeration survey will be held in November.
The PBS will hand over the summary results to the Election Commission of Pakistan on December 31, while the data cleansing, imputation rules and detailed results will be announced from January to February 2023.
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