ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) has once again extended the deadline for the ongoing 7th population and housing census-2023, the first-ever digital census.
According to the official PBS documents, in pursuance of the decisions of the 14th meeting of census monitoring committee held on May 17, 2023, the chief census commissioner/chief statistician of PBS approved the continuation of census field operations till 22nd May.
The verification process will continue till 31st May to cover leftover areas, if any, in all districts of Pakistan, the documents added. The original deadline for completion was 4th April. The last extension granted an additional 15 days, pushing the deadline to May 15. The exercise had previously been extended to April 10, followed by subsequent extensions to April 15, 20, and 30.
No extension of census operation deadline: govt
In another letter of chief statistician, written to all chief secretaries (Punjab, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan, AJK, and G-B) and chief commissioner, ICT, Islamabad, it has been stated that census is a national task of profound importance with long-term ramifications due to its linkages with resource allocation and delimitation process.
At present, census field enumeration is being carried out at certain areas and verification and rectification exercise has been started in pursuance of the discussion/decisions made in the debriefing to the prime minister held on 16th May 2023 and 14th meeting of the Census Monitoring Committee (CMQ) held on 17th May 2023.
The letter stated that by virtue of the digital census, it is possible to detect irregularities in the census data collection, either due to under-enumeration or over-enumeration due to biases or lax behaviour. It is of utmost importance that data should be collected in an accurate and transparent manner.
All the concerned were requested to direct all the DCs/ACs to ensure full coverage by dedicated efforts and vigilant monitoring of the whole process in the field to ensure that data is collected in a transparent and unbiased way.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023
Comments
Comments are closed.