Ahsan Iqbal asks provincial govts to nominate staff for census

ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Planning Development & Special Initiatives Professor Ahsan Iqbal on Wednesday directed the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) and provincial governments to ensure the effective coordination for the timely completion of the country’s first-ever 7th Digital Population & Housing Census 2022.

He gave the directions while chairing the fourth Meeting of the Census Monitoring Committee (CMC) to review progress on the 7th Digital Population & Housing Census held on Wednesday. The meeting was attended by Chief Secretaries of all Provinces/Regions with relevant Secretaries, Additional Commissioner Islamabad, DG Military Operations, Directorate, Representatives from NADRA, NTC, Special Secretary Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), Director General Higher Education Commission HEC, and senior officers from Education, Local Government and other relevant stakeholders.

“The government is spending Rs 34 billion for the country’s first-ever digital census and each penny is public money which must be utilized to maximize the expenditures, ‘’ Minister Ahsan Iqbal, while directing PBS to brief about the details of the procurements made for the census. He also inquired about the procurement of the last census and its usage and also asked the provincial governments to attach their officials with PBS in a week so the process of the census could be expedited. Ahsan Iqbal also asked the provincial governments to stop the transfer of officials already deputed for census till its completion. It is noted that officials from the education department and others were attached to PBS for the Census.

Chief Statistician, Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS), gave a brief overview of the agenda of the fourth CMC meeting. The main agenda of the meeting is to devise the mechanism for the appropriate and timely resolution of the issues about Census operations i.e. provision of staff, provision of ToT and TOE Venue for the training at Division and Tehsil level and non-joining of provisional census commission from provincial governments.

Briefing on the overall progress of Census activities, the Chief Statistician informed that PBS with the support of all relevant stakeholders has completed major tasks and is now prepared for the full rollout of the gigantic task of Census. Furthermore, he added that PBS has initiated training in three tiers i.e. training of Master Trainers, Training of Trainers (ToT) and Training of Enumerators. He also discussed the main issues faced by the PBS due to the unwillingness of the provincial governments’ to provide staff for the conduct of digital census and the non-availability of ToT venues at the district and tehsil levels.

Ahsan Iqbal emphasized on the timely completion of the Census and asked the provisional government to nominate officers, besides immediately providing the training venues along with the required facilities to make the training session effective.