In a first, Pakistan to kick-start digital census from March 1

For the first time in Pakistan’s history, a digital population and housing census will begin across the country from March 1.

The 7th census will continue for a month and conclude on April 1.

Announced by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS), which works under the Ministry of Planning, Development and Special Initiatives, approval to conduct the census was given during the Council of Common Interest's (CCI) 49th meeting held on January 13.

Prior to the decision, the PBS had 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. While the training of enumerators in three batches was done from January 7 to 21 this year in which the local administration played a crucial role.

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.

‘Pakistan’s population is 207.68m’

According to the final results of Census-2017, the population of Pakistan is 207.68 million (with -0.043% difference from provisional results) with a population growth rate of 2.40% from 1998 to 2017 with 106.3 million males and 101.3 million females.

Punjab has the highest share of the population 52.96 % in 2017 followed by Sindh at 23.04%, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa 14.69%, Balochistan 5.94% and FATA & Islamabad at 2.40% and 0.96% respectively.

The highest population density per square KM is in Islamabad with 2,211 persons per square KM and the lowest is in Balochistan at 35.53 persons. The highest sex ratio is 110.68 in Islamabad and the lowest in KP with 102.4.

The majority of the population is between the ages 15 to 64 years with 53.40% and 40.31% population in the age group less than 15 years. 63.56% population is living in rural areas and 36.44% in urban areas according to Census-2017.