Shaheer Ahmed
In the fifth most populous nation’s the first-ever digital population and housing census will begin tomorrow (Wednesday).
Given that a digital portal was launched earlier this month and over 4 million individuals registered themselves through it, the much-anticipated general elections would be place in constituencies based on the new digital census.
According to Muhammad Sarwar Gondal, a spokesman for the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, field operations for the census will begin on March 1 and end on April 1. By April 30, the data will be made available.
The National Technology Council (NTC), National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA), provincial governments, and the armed forces are collaborating with the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics on the data collecting.
All of the teams would receive assistance from the local police and armed forces during the field visit from the more than 1 lac field enumerators who had been trained and deployed for the operation. There have been built up nearly 500 Census Support Centers across the country, and 126,000 electronic gadgets will be used.
A population census must be conducted every ten years, according to Pakistan’s constitution. The outcomes of censuses are utilized for future policy planning, resource distribution, sampling strategies, constituency delimitation, and apportionment.
Censuses were conducted in 1951, 1961, and 1972 (postponed one year due to the 1971 war), and in 1981. However, due to partisanship, the ensuing censuses weren’t held until 1998 and 2017.
