PESHAWAR: The Pakistan Bureau of Statistics has started the Social and Living Standards and Household Integrated Economic Survey in seven tribal districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to compile data about 35 indicators, including health, education, living standard, women and poverty.

For the first time, such a survey is being conducted in the country’s tribal areas.

The bureau, which has been compiling statistical data related to various socio-economic sectors in settled parts of the country, started exercise in these erstwhile Fata agencies after their merger with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Exercise meant to compile data on health, education, poverty, women

An official told Dawn that the PBS had deputed its teams in all tribal districts in the last week of August and the exercise was likely to be completed in mid 2019.

He said the General Statistics (Reorganisation) Act, 2011, had been extended to seven tribal districts after the 25th Constitutional Amendment of May last enabled the bureau to start the survey.

“The bureau did not have legal tool or mechanism to conduct survey in tribal territories before the constitutional amendment,” he said, adding that the ongoing exercise was continues process to collect data through primary, secondary sources and administrative records of the government.

Before the constitutional amendment, the Fata Secretariat with the financial and technical assistance of UN agencies and other foreign donors occasionally conducted social and economic indicator surveys in the area.

“The ongoing exercise will be very accurate and reliable as separate questionnaires for men, women and labour force have been designed,” said an official.

In the context of Fata, two areas in the survey stand out as something of interest considering the regional socio-cultural and conflict dynamics. One is the aspect of women population in a region, where traditionally this section of population has remained voiceless in a patriarchal tribal population. The survey addresses it through a specific questionnaire seeking data on women.

Another area of significance is the nutrition in a region, where conflict, militancy and military operations have displaced millions, greatly affecting not just the psychological and physical health and socio-economic wellbeing of the population but also hampering the people’s access to proper nutrition.

The survey also seeks data on labour force in Fata that is likely to shed light on the skills and employment situation in a region that has little industry or economy of its own, with the male population aspiring for jobs in the Gulf as skilled and unskilled labour.

The survey is being conducted in 25 blocks created by the PBS in Bajaur, Mohmand, Khyber, Orakzai, Kurram, North Waziristan and South Waziristan tribal districts for population census.

The bureau had conducted housing and population census across the country in 2017.

The census in 14 blocks of Upper Orakzai, two of Rajgal area of Khyber, five of Mohmand and 114 of Datakhel tehsil of North Waziristan didn’t take place due to security reasons.

Officials in the PBS said the minimum size of block was 250 households and the maximum 350. They said in few areas, a block contained up to 2,000 households.

The officials said the bureau had designed a set of questionnaires for households in selected blocks.

Published in Dawn, September 2nd, 2018