The Statistics Division here on Monday arranged a briefing session on the restructuring of Federal Statistical System of Pakistan, besides introducing "Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) and the provisions made in the new law. The draft bill for the restructuring and reorganising of Federal Statistical System is in the process of approval by the parliament.
Officials from Statistics Division, Federal Bureau of Statistics (FBS) and Population Census Organisation (PCO) participated in the briefing. Speaking on the occasion, Deputy Director General of Statistics Division, Muhammad Uris Jumani said that the government has approved the reorganisation of Federal Statistical System of Pakistan to make it more responsive to the national requirements with increased autonomy and credibility.
This would be done through merger of Federal Bureau of Statistics (FBS), Population Census Organisation (PCO), Agriculture Census Organisation and the Technical Wing of Statistics Division into a new autonomous entity, Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, he added.
He said that the main objectives of restructuring are to make the statistical system more relevant to national requirements and ensure a proper statistical capacity building, career planning of professional staff, up-gradation of their skills and economy in resources through pooling of human and material resources and better co-ordination of work of different data collecting agencies.
The proposed PBS would be a statutory body and FBS and ACO are to be merged immediately while the PCO would be merged after the completion of current national census schedule. The Bureau would have an apex body namely Governing Council with three governmental and four non-governmental representatives while a National Users Council comprising of data users would be appointed to provide advice on priorities for collection of statistical data in order to achieve efficiency, adequate and prompt results.
The Bureau will be head by a Chief Statistician supported by five functional members to be appointed on contact basis initially for a tenure of 5 and 4 years respectively and provision has been made for release and dissemination of data by the statistical authority while protecting the secrecy of individuals, firms and institutions.
The draft law also provides for establishment of a Statistics Fund to ensure financial autonomy of the bureau whereas protection has been provided in the draft law to the existing employees of the bureau in terms of service and they would be governed by the Civil Servants Act, 1973 and rules made thereunder and would continue service on same terms and conditions as determined under this act. Every persons/employee would have right to opt to work in the Bureau as Civil Servant or under the new rules and regulations of the Bureau to be prepared by management of the PBS.
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