Census: PBS Advised For Post-enumeration Survey To Validate Collected Data

The Census Monitoring Committee, which met under the Chairmanship of Minister for Planning Development and Special Initiatives Professor Ahsan Iqbal, on Wednesday reviewed the progress of the country's first-ever Digital Population and Housing Census after its field operation was completed, except three districts of Kohistan and some snowbound areas

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 7th Jun, 2023 ) :The Census Monitoring Committee, which met under the Chairmanship of Minister for Planning Development and Special Initiatives Professor Ahsan Iqbal, on Wednesday reviewed the progress of the country's first-ever Digital Population and Housing Census after its field operation was completed, except three districts of Kohistan and some snowbound areas "The successful conclusion of fieldwork for the digital census is elation and a moment of great pride for the nation as it is the largest South Asian digital census of its kind," a Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) news release said.

It said the digital system smoothly functioned throughout the field operation successfully without any disruption and helped unearth various under-coverage patterns during the task for real-time rectification. "The overall progress of the census is very encouraging and satisfactory." During the meeting, the CMC decided that the Post Enumeration Survey (PES) for the digital population census would be conducted in the light of Council of Common Interests (CCI) decision to assess the extent of over and under reporting, if any, as well as for validating the provisional data of first-ever digital Census. "The PBS will work out the modalities for the conduct of PES and will prepare a comprehensive plan and strategy for consideration and approval of CMC." The committee also advised the Finance Division for the immediate release of the remaining census funds required to be paid to various stakeholders and service providers as well as the field staff.

"It has also been decided by CMC that NADRA will ensure necessary arrangements for retrieval of tablets and allied matters as per SOPs to complete the process during June 9-12, 2023 at 495 Census Support Center (CSC)." All the Census District Officers will ensure safe and secure storage of tablets at the CSC till their dispatch to the PBS Headquarters.

All the District and Assistant Commissioners, being Census District Officers, would provide duly filled and signed completion certificates in the prescribed format at the earliest. "The payment to the field staff for census work will be made after provision of completion certificate by respective DC/AC as per the decision of Census Monitoring Committee." The 15-day census field operation in heavily snowbound areas comprising 129 blocks of Azad Jammu and Kashmir, 80 blocks of Gilgit-Baltistan and 16 blocks of Mansehra in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and three districts of Kohistan would commence from July 1 to 15, 2013.

During the meeting, Minister for Information Technology and Telecommunication Syed Amin UI Haque applauded the efforts of PBS and the Planning Minister for the successful conduct of field operation of the digital census and congratulated them on accomplishing the gigantic task.