Istafa Ali
Naeemuz Zafar, the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS)’s Chief Census Commissioner and Chief Statistician, made a ground-breaking declaration when he unveiled the early results of the seventh national and first-ever Digital Census.
The Census Commissioner said during a news conference that Pakistan now has a staggering population of 249,566,743 people, which converts to around 249.5 million or almost 25 crore people.
When the population statistics were broken down by province, it was discovered that Punjab continued to be the most populated province, with a stunning population of 127,474,000 people, or over 127.4 million or nearly 12.7 Crore people. With a population of around 57,931,000, or roughly 57.9 million, or over 5.7 Crore people, Sindh is not far behind.
On the other side, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa registered a population of around 39,823,000 people, or over 39.7 million or nearly 3.9 Crore people. Balochistan, the country’s biggest province by land area, had a population of around 21,977,000, or over 21.9 million, or roughly 2.1 billion people. Islamabad, the federal capital, recorded having a population of 2,359,422 people, or around 2.3 million or about 23 lac.
The Census Commissioner also noted that Pakistan’s population has grown significantly during the previous census, by 49 million people (4.9 Crore), suggesting a considerable growth rate.
The Census Commissioner said that the first-ever Digital Census will cost the national exchequer a significant sum of money—more than Rs. 34 billion.
The Pakistani Army, provincial governments, the Government of Gilgit Baltistan, the Azad State of Jammu and Kashmir, NADRA, SUPARCO, NTISB, and NTC were among the organisations and stakeholders who received special thanks from the PBS for their unwavering support and assistance during the Digital Census process.
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The Chief Minister’s Committee (CMC) decided that access to tablets for some areas will stay accessible until May 22, 2023, even though the official end of the census field activities was May 15th. On May 22, 2023, at midnight, all services offered at the provincial, district, and tehsil levels—including data input on tablets and monitoring dashboards—were shut down.
