Housing and population census: around 40m households counted so far

ISLAMABAD: Around 40 million households have been counted and geo-tagged and 92 per cent of the 7th housing and population census work has already been successfully completed with 95 per cent in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, 95 per cent in Punjab, 92 per cent in Sindh, and six per cent in Balochistan.

The Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) officials revealed that the provincial and district governments have the critical responsibility to conduct the census field operation to ensure 100 per cent quality and credible coverage, making sure no one is left behind.

The PBS has provided the design, and strategic approach, and equipped the provincial and district governments with the technology and tools for complete transparency and real-time progress monitoring of census activities, along with daily oversight and feedback to further improve the data collection exercise in real-time.

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The digital census is a huge success and a moment of pride for the nation. So far, 40 million households have been counted and geo-tagged and 92 per cent of the census work has been successfully completed (95 per cent KP, 95 per cent Punjab, 92 per cent Sindh, and six per cent Balochistan).

The smooth workflow and technology innovations, data of almost 10 million people is daily synched without any issues or technical glitches. This is a huge win for Pakistan and a commendable initiative as it increases transparency, accountability, and efficiency.

The real-time data progress monitoring dashboards, developed in partnership with the NADRA and provided by the PBS from the provincial to the district governments, help provincial governments in identifying any abnormalities, any areas missed and any other emerging anomalies on a daily basis.

The data received is analysed on a daily basis by the PBS headquarters and immediately communicated to the provinces for their resolution to ensure timely response and universal and complete coverage.

The current 7th housing and population census and the first digital census are a historic milestone and the first digital census of its kind in South Asia. This successful execution of the census has been made possible through the commendable of PBS and relentless efforts of the provincial and district governments to ensure complete and credible census field operations with the support of the technology support provided by the NADRA.

The move towards digitization has allowed provincial and district governments, who are responsible for the field operations for the 100% universal and inclusive census coverage, to immediately identify the missed areas using the geo-tagged houses and the quality of data entered for them by the enumerators in real-time; therefore, immediately addressing any issues or gaps. PBS provides the design, strategic approach, oversight and support to all activities of the census.

The success of the current census is also attributed to the rigorous, universally standardised training provided by PBS to 121,000 field enumerators that were identified and selected by the provinces, along with 126,000 tablets to digitize the data collection process, hence increasing accuracy and efficiency while significantly reducing the time taken in entering, reconciling and analysing the data.

The PBS designed the digital census as a solution to the questions, raised on the process during the previous census in 2017.

The methodologies and processes were finalised following international best practices and extensive consultations with all stakeholders at all levels.

On the recommendation of the Census Advisory Committee, PBS started work with technical support provided by NADRA and NTC and field operations executed by provincial and district governments. Sarwar Gondal, Member SSRM and Spokesperson PBS, took an exemplary initiative to use an integrated multi-technology approach to digitize the census process.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023