Not necessary that Karachi's population will emerge 30m after census: PBS official

KARACHI: Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) Chief Census Commissioner Dr Naeemuz Zafar said the first-ever digital census has so far counted over 31 million people in Sindh, of which 8.5m are living in Karachi alone, ARY News reported.

Addressing a news conference held at the Federal Bureau of Statistics in Karachi, Zafar said that 60 per cent of the population has been counted so far, adding that 40 million houses enumerated and geo-tagged.

In Sindh, he said, 9.7 million houses had been geo-tagged and in Karachi 8.5 million people had so far been enumerated.

“It is not necessary that the city’s population would emerge as 30 million after the census,” he said.

The PBS official also made it clear that persons will be counted in the area or city where they live, regardless of [the place] where their identity card is based.

In reply to a question about the reservations of Sindh government about the digital census, Zafar said the federal government had allowed all the provincial administrations to access the census monitoring dashboards.

In March, Sindh Chief Minister (CM) Murad Ali Shah threatened to quit the coalition government if the province’s concerns about the digital census are not removed.