Federal Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiative, Ahsan Iqbal chaired the sixth meeting of the Census Monitoring Committee at the Planning Commission today.
The planning minister emphasized the authenticity of the census process. He said there should be no compromise on timelines and census should be transparent. He said that provinces should be onboard and consensus must be made on all issues to avoid any controversy and effective utilization of resources.
The meeting was attended by members of the committee from all relevant departments and stakeholders which included Chief Secretaries of all provinces, Secretaries, DG Military Operations Directorate, Senior Member Board of Revenue, and senior officers from the Education Department and NADRA among others.
The main purpose of the meeting was to review the progress regarding the activities of the first-ever digital census and allied matters regarding field operations, and financial requirements.
At the outset, the Chief Census Commissioner Dr. Naeem uz Zafar presented in detail the progress on the 7th Population & Housing Census-related activities. He apprised the chair about the progress main milestone that the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) and other stakeholders have achieved and self- enumeration portal has been launched successfully through which data can be entered from 20th February 2023 to 3rd March which will facilitate users in the census process for getting them counted.
It was informed that since the opening of the self-enumeration portal, 809,928 people have visited the portal and 9,682 families have enumerated themselves successfully in less than 24 hours. He further informed that PBS is all prepared to start the field exercise of the census as per the given timelines.
The matter of the possibility of inclusion of CNIC numbers in the census software was deliberated in detail for the identification of aliens. After detailed deliberations and the consent of stakeholders, it was decided that all efforts may be made to include it in software for the collection of credible data. However, provincial governments must give their written consent within two days regarding the matter. Further, data of all persons will be collected whether they have a CNIC or not as per the objective of the census.
