Dar for coordinated effort to conduct transparent census

ISLAMABAD: Finance Minister Senator Mohammad Ishaq Dar has said that conducting a transparent census was a national effort which could only be successful with the cooperation and support of all concerned.

Replying to a letter of Sindh chief minister on the matter of the forthcoming census, the Finance Minister appreciated the support and cooperation being extended to the census operation by the provinces.

The Finance Minister emphasised that services of the armed forces of Pakistan have been co-opted to work with the civil enumerators for ensuring a transparent and smooth census. The minister stated that Coordination and the Vigilance Committees have been set up at census district level to monitor the process to ensure accuracy of data collection.

The Finance Minister however clarified that public access to data at census district level was not possible as the census data will not be processed at district level and also the law in this case prohibited sharing of data before it was anonymous.

Referring to chief minister's proposal for setting up of complaint redressal system, the Finance Minister stated that an elaborate complaint redressal system had already been put in place. Control rooms have been established at federal, provincial, divisional, admin district and census district level to cater to the issues of non/over/under enumeration in the areas during census operation.

Replying to the proposal of doing away with the condition of CNIC for the census, the Finance Minister clarified that CNIC is not mandatory. CNIC of the head of the family or any responsible person is required to ensure authenticity of data. However, if a family does not have a CNIC, they can provide other forms of identification to prove their identity. In the extreme case, where no member of the family has a CNIC, that family will still be enumerated in the census process.

In order to further strengthen the transparency of the process, the Finance Minister proposed the setting up of a committee of technical experts, nominated by the provincial governments to monitor the data processing at PBS headquarters and ensure that all parameters of the data processing are being uniformly applied across the country.