Beyond May 15, 2023, the federal government will not postpone the digital census.
According to sources within the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS), the department has already extended the date of the census four times to ensure thorough coverage and enumeration.
According to sources, PBS has tried to address the worries of political parties, notably those in Karachi. PBS has found some irregularities, particularly in large cities, including field enumerators who were careless with their job and an inadequate deployment of security personnel for field staff.
However, sources claimed that PBS had informed provincial governments to strictly oversee field enumeration by respective ACs and DCs, take close notice of any misreporting by enumerators, and provide one-on-one security to enumerators.
According to sources, PBS identified and shared with provincial governments a list of blocks with multistory buildings that receive less coverage, a list of blocks with negative population growth, and other pertinent data with the aid of a digital system. Additional officers and representatives from PBS headquarters were also sent to assist provincial governments in this matter.
An increase of 8.2 million people was recorded in the blocks that had previously been completed as a result of these initiatives and the collaborative efforts of the PBS team and the government of Sindh.
Along with the aforementioned, PBS also discovered and provided a second list of blocks identifying the possible under coverage with the province governments for correction through targeted and coordinated combing activities to achieve full coverage. This programme increased the population of the already-completed blocks by 4.6 million.
According to sources, in addition to data on demographics and housing characteristics, this digital census also includes features like geo-tagging of all structures and buildings used for residential and commercial purposes and the collection of information on economic activities according to international classification.
In order to ensure good governance and to assess the diversity, expansion, and sharing of the various economic activities that make up our economy—which is essential to ensuring the prosperity of the country—the census will also include additional features. These features will serve as the foundation for evidence-based policy, planning, and decision-making.
- Punjab has had 120,007,936 people counted so far,
- 56,149,769 in Sindh,
- 39,596,664 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa,
- 20,634,606 in Balochistan,
- and 2,270,436 in the Islamabad Capital Territory as of May 11.
