ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) Chief Statistician Dr Naeemuz Zafar said that counting of 40 million people in 8 million houses was completed, so far, during ongoing seventh national census.

Talking to media along with census spokesperson Sarwar Gondal, PBS chief statistician said that citizenship of Kashmiri people was ‘Pakistani’, adding that Sindh government lacked confidence in process. He said that March 31 had been set as deadline to complete census.

For planning purposes, country had been divided into 185,509 blocks, while listing of 167,578 blocks had been completed so far, out of total of 183,048 blocks.

“Listing could not be started in 2,664 blocks, so far. There are security issues in 201 blocks,” Zafar told reporters, while adding “Listing could not be done due to security issues in former Fata [Federally-Administered Tribal Areas].”

Counting of people started on March 12. In first phase, house listings and all buildings have been geo-tagged and so far, 40 million buildings have been geo-tagged across country.

Responding to question, Dr Naeemuz Zafar said that work on this digital census had been going on for last two years, adding that 121,000 people were trained for census exercise.

“It is digital household and economic census. NADRA and NTC are playing an important role in securing census data, which will help in economic planning in country,” he added.

Published in The Daily National Courier, March, 17 2023

Like Business on Facebook, follow @DailyNCourier on Twitter to stay informed and join in the conversation.