ISLAMABAD: While halting the digital census for Eid, the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) announced on Friday that so far 235 million people had been counted — a whopping increase of 27m, or 12.98 per cent, since 2017.

That year’s census had put the country’s population at 207.68m.

The digital census operations will resume after Eid holidays in the light of directives from the Census Monitoring Committee (CMC), said Sarwar Gondal, the PBS spokesperson.

He said field activities for the seventh Population and Housing Census had been halted from April 21 to April 25 for Eid.

According to an official announcement, more than 16.5m individuals had been counted in Karachi so far, while Lahore’s population had crossed 11.5m.

PBS says digital census exercise suspended during Eid

The number of individuals counted so far in Punjab is over 116m while in Sindh 52m people had been counted.

The corresponding figure for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is 39m and for Balochistan it is 19m.

The statistics show that the country’s population, as well as the numbers for Karachi and Lahore, had witnessed a substantial increase.

Real-time monitoring

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

The data received is analysed every day at the PBS headquarters and immediately communicated to the provinces for their resolution to ensure timely response and complete coverage.

The current housing and population census is a historic milestone since it is the first digital count of its kind in South Asia.

The move towards digitisation has allowed provincial and district governments to immediately identify the missed areas by using geo-tagged houses and the quality of data entered for them by enumerators in real-time.

The PBS has further supported the provincial and district governments by setting up a helpline, 080057574, and SMS gateway 9727, where people can call for queries or report anyone or any area missed.

A total of 495 census support centres are now working as points of referral for all missed areas.

The current methodology ensures universal inclusion, meaning that each and every individual living in a location for six months, or planning to live there for another six months, and who will be using resources around that location regardless of their nationality, geography, ethnicity, identity, affiliations, politics, caste or creed, will be counted.

As per the General Statistics Reorg­anisation Act 2011 and UN Conventions, the census is a national duty to inform policymaking, decision-making, future planning, and development.

The Pakistan Bureau of Statistics has digitally transformed the census for ease of use while ensuring verifiability, transparency and accountability.

The exemplary work by the provincial and district governments has given hope that Pakistan is moving in the right direction, bringing it at par with those nations that conduct their census by using technology to various degrees.

These include the United States, the United Kingdom, India, Iran, Egypt, and Bangladesh.

Published in Dawn, April 22nd, 2023