ISLAMABAD: Amid a delay of around six months in the holding of seventh national housing and population census, the government on Monday decided to seek approval of the Cou­ncil of Common Interests (CCI) for a fresh schedule under which final results could be handed over to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) no earlier than April 30, 2023.

Under the original schedule, the results were to be submitted to the ECP by mid-December — a deadline that would now actually be the starting point.

Minister for Planning, Dev­elopment and Special Ini­t­i­a­tives Ahsan Iqbal dire­cted the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) to send a fresh summary to the CCI and Prime Minister’s Office with a fresh timeline over the 7th Digital Census 2022.

According to an official statement, the minister made these directions while chairing a meeting to review progress on the census. The meeting was attended by the secretary of planning commission, the PBS chief, chairman of the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) and other officials.

The PBS chief told the meeting that the earlier summary had been submitted after an agreement with Nadra for conduct of census from Oct 15, 2022 to Nov 15, 2022. However, he added, due to delay in opening of the letter of credit because of prevailing economic situation, Nadra was unable to provide the required number of tablets, saying that all 126,000 tablets would be handed over in installments by December while the census ERP (complete software solutions) by Oct 15, for testing.

The PBS arranged the training of master trainers and trainers at the divisional level in November and December. However, as training at the tehsil level for 120,000 field staff and field work cannot be initiated before the complete handover of tablets, the timelines had been revised.

Now the field work will be conducted from Feb 1, 2023 to March 4, and results after the conduct of post-enumeration survey will be handed over to the ECP by April 30, for delimitation purposes.

The minister expressed concern over extension in the deadline and asked the PBS to urgently intimate the CCI and PM Office due to the sensitivity of matter. He emphasised that any further delay cannot be acceptable as the next elections will be based on this census.

The PBS was directed to ensure the quality of training at the tehsil level and to include the Higher Education Commission and academia to monitor the process because quality training was essential for credible and reliable data. The minister was of the view that the assessment of the processes should be done by an independent third body.

The PBS chief informed the meeting that Nadra had so far handed over 22,000 tables which were ready to be dispatched to the districts and tehsils and the remaining will be handed over soon. He said 21,600 more tested tablets will reach the PBS within 24 hours.

The meeting was informed that training of master trainers would now be held from Nov 28 to Dec 10 and that of self-enumerators will be start on Jan 15, 2023.

It was decided to expedite the process and strictly adhere to the revised timelines keeping in view the sensitivity of matter because of dependence of next general elections on the census results.

Published in Dawn, November 8th, 2022