PBS to form body for audit of selected census blocks

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) would form an all-inclusive committee to make arrangements for third-party audit or validation exercise of the selective census blocks in line with the directions of the Council of Common Interest (CCI), the sources told The News here on Friday.
“The government has decided to again raise the issue of the audit of the census blocks in next meeting of CCI to take a final decision over the percentage of the census blocks for third-party audit. So when the final decision will be taken by the CCI then PBS will obtain the minutes of its meeting to move ahead in this respect,” the sources said.
The sources said PBS has not conducted audit or validation exercise after the population census in the past so it is currently sorting out the modalities to go through it in an amicable way.
They said PBS would publish an advertisement to obtain bids from the private firms and one of them would be selected for audit of the census blocks by a committee that may include persons from other departments and the private sector.
The PBS had divided the country into 168,120 census blocks and each block comprised 250 to 300 housing units. Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi has said the issue of raising census blocks from one percent to five percent for third party audit would be presented before the CCI for approval.