Federal Minister for Planning, Asad Umar, has said that Pakistan is all set for history’s first digital census this year.
Addressing the inaugural ceremony of the National Census Coordination Center (N3C) for Digital Census 2022 at the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) on Tuesday, Asad Umar said that the country needs quality data, which is crucial for planning and development. The minister said that if any country wants good planning, it should have good informational data, and a census is the best exercise to collect data. He said that the constitution guarantees census after every ten years.
“Despite modern technology, the census exercise delayed for 18 or 20 years and soon after the results, objections are raised,” said the minister. “For such an important task, it is necessary to use the latest technology in the world,” Asad Umar added.
Asad Umar assured that the coordination center would have representation of all provinces. All the information would be available to the public and media, he informed. He said that the process is underway and we would complete it by end of 2022. The minister further apprised that Rs. 10 billion was already allocated for the purchase of hardware, software, and tablets to conduct the digital census, and another Rs. 5 billion has been earmarked for census expenditure.
During the briefing, the minister said that only 1 to 2 percent of the census would be paper-based, and 98 percent of the process will be digital. Minister Umar informed that the census results would be announced in December 2022. He said that the new elections would use the data of the new census. He said that the results would be shared with the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) for delimitations, and scheduling of new constituencies under the new census results. He assured that the digital census would have minimum objections, and if there are any complaints, the government would answer them. He rejected any chances of hacking or tempering of data during or after the census exercise.
While briefing about the census processes, the Chief Statistician, Dr. Naeem Zafar, said that this is the first time in the history of Pakistan that a digital census is being conducted. He said that consultation with provincial administrations and other relevant stakeholders is complete.
He said that this time, we recommend the De Jure method for the census, which is also a practice in the world. He explained that where there would be no internet facility, data would be collected on paper. He said that the Deputy Chairman Planning Commission would be the head of the National Census Coordinator center.
Dr. Naeem Zafar said that there would be 614 Census Support Centers across Pakistan, and one block will consist of 250 families, and the result of each block will be calculated separately. He said that 120,000 tablets would be procured for the census. “The Ministry of Information Technology and National Telecommunication Corporation will oversee the system, and all the software and hardware would be procured from and by government agencies,” he added.
