Islamabad: The federal government will release provisional results of the country’s sixth population census by the end of July, Chief Census Commissioner Asif Bajwa shared the information with a meeting held at Islamabad on Thursday.
Bajwa said that 151 districts in all four provinces besides the Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK), Gilgit-Baltistan and Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) were covered in the census.
Bajwa added, “Services of 119,000 enumerators and supervisory staff were used in collecting data in 168,540 census blocks throughout the country. In addition to civilian field staff, 200,000 army personnel were also engaged as enumerators as well as to provide security to census teams.”
He said all the census-related record and material had been safely retrieved under the supervision of armed forces personnel. “It’s sorting and stacking has also been completed,” he added.
The first phase of the census had ended on April 15, while the second phase was completed by May 25.
Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, also present at the meeting, expressed satisfaction that the exercise was completed in a timely manner. He told the meeting that Rs 18.5 billion had been spent on the census. Of this amount, he said, Rs 6bn each was spent on expenses associated with the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) and Army personnel whose services were sought for the census. The remaining Rs 6.5bn was incurred on transportation-related costs.
The country’s first census had been held in 1951. The second census took place after a mandatory 10-year gap in 1961 but the third census got delayed by a year owing to political turmoil in the country and was held in 1972. The fourth census was conducted in 1981 but the fifth got delayed by seven years. It was held in 1998. The Constitution requires a census after every 10 years.
Earlier, the finance minister said it was heartening to note that independent international observers had termed the census as satisfactory in accordance with international standards.
Published in Daily Times, June 30th, 2017.
