Pakistan’s first digital census to begin from March

Islamabad: Pakistan's first ever digital population and housing census begins across the country from Wednesday (tomorrow).

Briefing newsmen about the census in Islamabad on Monday, Spokesperson Pakistan Bureau of Statistics Muhammad Sarwar Gondal said a portal has already been launched by the Bureau so that people can submit their data themselves and don't need to face the botheration of giving data to census teams visiting door-to-door.

“More than four million people have already been registered at the portal and a Unique Tracking Number (UTN) will be issued to them after their data is saved and they can give that number to the census team which will save their own time and also of the census team,” he said.                 

The Spokesperson stated that 121000 field enumerators have been deployed for the field operation of census which is beginning on Wednesday.                                        

Muhammad Sarwar added, “This process will be completed by April 1 and the data will be released by April 30 which will then be approved by the Council of Common Interests (CCI).          

He further stated that this will be the evidence based authentic data as per international standards which will be used for constituency delimitation in next general elections as well as for public policy planning.        

Gondal further added: “This is the 7th census in the country first ever digital census not only of Pakistan but also of south Asia”.

The spokesperson said the census teams will be monitored by geo-mapping and geo-tagging data of Pakistan Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (SUPARCO) and administration officials of respective province, division, district and tehsil where census teams are carrying out enumeration, will be given access to the dashboard of that specific area.              

Elucidating this, he said: “Chief Secretaries of provinces will have access across the province, similarly Commissioners will have access to Divisions, Deputy Commissioners (DCs) to districts and Assistant Commissioners (ACs) to tehsils.

The spokesperson added, to avoid any hacking or failure of online system we have separated the process from internet and have converted it into our own intra-net server stating that, we have already done a security audit of the dashboards.

However to ensure smooth running of census field operation there will also be alternate manual system if any problem occurs in online system in any area.

“Security arrangements have also been made for the census staff and police and army personnel will be deployed keeping in view the sensitivity of the area,” spokesperson said.

He said special Standard operating procedure (SOPs) have been devised for enumeration in flood affected areas of the country where many people are not yet settled into their homes.