• Pakistan will conduct digital population and housing census
• The census will be held from March 1 till April 1
• PBS  said census was delayed due to unavoidable circumstances

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan will initiate the first-ever digital population and housing census across the country starting from March 1.

The 7th census will continue for a month and conclude on April 1. Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) had issued a notification regarding the census.

The PBS, which works under the Ministry of Planning, Development and Special Initiatives, approved to conduct the census during the Council of Common Interest’s (CCI) 49th meeting held on January 13.

The PBS initiated the census activities and devised a plan to impart training to conduct the census in three tiers — training of master trainers in Islamabad; training of trainers (TOTS) at the divisional level; and training of enumerators (TOEs) at the census district level.

The department successfully conducted the training of master trainers and training of trainers on December 15 and 23 last year, respectively.

The training of enumerators was done in three batches from January 7 to 21 this year in which the local administration played a crucial role, the notification added.

The department shared that the census field operation was earlier planned to be conducted from February 1 to March 4, 2023.

“However, due to some unavoidable circumstances and keeping in view the ground realities, it has been decided in the fifth progress review meeting of the census monitoring committee (CMC), constituted by the Council of Common Interest (CCI) [which includes representation from all the provinces and stakeholders] held on January 17, 2023,” the ministry’s notification read, announcing the date to kickstart the field operations for the digital census.

The ministry has directed the relevant department to proceed accordingly, as well as arrange and schedule all the requisite activities as per the said census rollover date.

The notification has been sent to provincial census commissioner, focus persons, chief secretary of Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Gilgit-Baltistan, and Azad Jammu and Kashmir, all commissioners, and M.O. Directorate at GHQ, Rawalpindi.

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