ISLAMABAD: After the successful completion of the country’s first pilot digital census on Wednesday, Federal Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives Ahsan Iqbal has directed the key stakeholders, the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) and the National Database Registration Authority (Nadra), to prepare draft of a summary for sending to the Council of Common Interest (CII) and the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) for holding the first digital census in the country for holding general election in 2023.

The minister issued these directions while chairing a meeting after the completion of the pilot digital census on Wednesday. The meeting was attended by the Chief Statistician PBS and Director General NADRA. During the meeting, Chief Statistician PBS informed the minister that the digital pilot census has been completed on Wednesday and by and large it remained successful. In this regard, a detailed presentation will be given to the minister next week.

During the meeting, the DG NADRA informed the minister that the first shipment of devices to be used for the census will be landed in Pakistan on August 20 from China and subsequently, training will be started of the staff for the census. The minister directed the officials to conduct independent verification of the training besides engaging academia and university students from across the country in the training process so the student of statistics could learn something. He further directed that by July 1, 2023, fresh voters’ list should be ready so the ECP could hold elections on the list.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022