Govt asked to allow import of software for census data

ISLAMABAD: To undertake the upcoming population census promptly, the Census Monitoring Committee (CMC) on Tuesday asked the government to

allow the National Telecommunication Corporation (NTC) to use the provision of $200,000 for the opening up of a Letter of Credit

(LC) to import backend software from Singapore for storage of census data.

Without the import of backend software from Singapore, the census data cannot be stored by the NTC, so the meeting requested the government to direct the State Bank of Pakistan to manage $200,000 for the import of software without any further delay.

According to the official statement issued on Tuesday, as per the decisions of the Council of Common Interest (CCI), the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics is working extensively to meet the challenging timelines to conduct the first-ever digital census of Pakistan.

In this regard, the fifth meeting of the Census Monitoring Committee was held on January 17, 2023, at 3:30 pm at the National Census Coordination Centre under the chair of Ahsan Iqbal, Minister PD&SI.

A Census Monitoring Committee was constituted in pursuance of a decision taken at the 49th meeting of the Council of Common Interest (CCI) held on January 13, 2022, to oversee and monitor census activities to ensure expeditious, transparent, and credible census conduct. The meeting was attended by members of the committee from all relevant departments and stakeholders, which includes relevant federal ministries, administration of all provincial and area governments, DG Military Operations Directorate, NADRA, NTC, etc.

The meeting’s main purpose was to update all stakeholders on the progress and ongoing activities of the Seventh Population and Housing Census, make decisions on census methodology in snowbound areas, and the issue of aligning national events with census timelines.

Dr. Naeemuz Zafar, Chief Census Commissioner (PBS), presented in detail the progress on census-related activities. He informed them that 495 Census Support Centers have been established, with trained personnel assigned to them. Provinces have allocated 120,000 census field staff. A pilot census was successfully conducted in 33 districts, 125,500 tablets were hardened and delivered to 495 census support centers, and the training of 121,000 field staff has been in progress since January 7, 2023, at 992 venues. However, problems were faced with attendance in all provinces, especially Sindh and Punjab. He said that NADRA has informed it that all the requirements, including the security audit, will be completed soon, and after the security audit, self-enumeration may be launched depending on the provision of required backend infrastructure by NTC.

Prof. Ahsan Iqbal, Minister of Planning, Development, and Special Initiatives emphasised the authenticity of the census process, which is a huge national exercise. He said there should be no compromise on timelines. The census should be transparent and will be successful with the joint efforts of all organisations involved.