Pakistan’s seventh census delayed for a month

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) has announced that the seventh digital housing and population census has been delayed for a month due to ‘unavoidable circumstances’, ARY News reported.

According to notification issued by the Planning Ministry, the seventh census field operation was earlier planned to be conducted from February 1 to March 4, 2023.

“However, due to some unavoidable circumstances and keeping in view the ground realities, it has been decided in the fifth progress review meeting of the census monitoring committee (CMC) to start the field operation of the census from 1 March to 1 April, 2023,” the ministry’s notification read.

The census, which will be conducted digitally, will continue for a month and conclude on April 1. The approval for seventh census was given during the Council of Common Interest’s (CCI) 49th meeting held on January 13.

In this regard, the PBS initiated the census activities and devised plan to impart training of 7 Population and Housing Census in three tiers – Training of Master Trainers at Islamabad; Training of Trainers (TOTS) at Divisional Level; and Training of Enumerators (TOEs) at Census District Level.

The department successfully conducted the training of master trainers and training of trainers on December 15 and 23 last year, respectively. While the training of enumerators in three batches was done from January 7 to 21 this year in which the local administration played a crucial role.

The ministry has directed the relevant department to proceed accordingly, as well as arrange and schedule all the requisite activities as per the said census rollover date.