The Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) has asked the government to release the remaining amount of Rs. 12 billion for conducting the 7th Housing and Population Census in the country.
This was confirmed by PBS Member Support Services/ Resource Management Muhammad Sarwar Gondal while talking to ProPakistani.
“We have moved a summary to the Planning Ministry, which would be further submitted to the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the Cabinet for approval. After the ECC approval, the federal cabinet ratification would be required for the release of funds”, he said.
Gondal mentioned that PBS needed Rs. 34 billion for conducting the census of which Rs 10 billion was already available. Later it sought Rs. 24 billion from the federal government out of which Rs. 12 billion was released. He said that there would be issues if the remaining funds were not released on time.
Replying to a question about the likely delay in completing the census, he said that currently all things are on schedule and 160 million people have been counted so far.
After getting funds from the federal government earlier, PBS disbursed Rs. 4.14 billion to Punjab, Rs. 2 billion to Sindh, Rs. 783 million to Balochistan, and Rs. 1.36 billion was disbursed to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. It also released funds for Gilgit-Baltistan, Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK), and Islamabad.
Around 86,000 army officers and personnel, besides police are providing security to the field enumerators. The results would be released on April 30, 2023, after completing the data analysis.
