By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) has counted 235 million individuals in the country so far, marking a substantial increase of 27 million, or 12.98 percent, since the 2017 census, which had estimated the population at 207.68 million, Dawan.com reported.
The PBS spokesperson, Sarwar Gondal, said the seventh Population and Housing digital Census, suspended from April 21 to April 25 for Eid holidays, would resume as per directives from the Census Monitoring Committee (CMC).
The census has so far counted over 16.5 million individuals in Karachi and over 11.5 million in Lahore, with Punjab having a count of over 116 million, Sindh 52 million, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa 39 million, and Balochistan 19 million.
The statistics reveal a substantial increase in the country’s population, as well as in the numbers for Karachi and Lahore.
Real-time monitoring dashboards, developed in partnership with NADRA and provided by PBS to provincial and district governments, are used to monitor progress and identify abnormalities and missed areas on a daily basis.
The received data is analysed every day at the PBS headquarters and immediately communicated to the provinces for a resolution to ensure complete coverage and timely response.
The current housing and population census is a significant milestone, as it marks the first digital count of its kind in South Asia. The move towards digitisation has allowed for the immediate identification of missed areas by using geo-tagged houses and quality data entered for them by enumerators in real time.
PBS has also set up a helpline, 080057574, and SMS gateway 9727, to receive queries and reports about any missed areas or individuals. A total of 495 census support centres are now operating as points of referral for all missed areas.
The current methodology ensures universal inclusion, meaning that each individual residing in a location for six months or planning to live there for another six months and using resources around that location, regardless of their nationality, geography, ethnicity, identity, affiliations, politics, caste, or creed, will be counted. The census is a national duty as per the General Statistics Reorganization Act 2011 and UN Conventions, to inform policymaking, decision-making, future planning, and development.
The PBS 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 other nations that conduct their census using technology, such as the United States, the United Kingdom, India, Iran, Egypt, and Bangladesh.
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