First-Ever Digital Census in Pakistan

A milestone in the history of Pakistan, with the help of the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS), a countrywide first-ever digital census, was conducted from Mar 01 to May 15, 2023. After gaining independence in 1947 from British India, likewise many other countries in the world, Pakistan was determined to conduct a census every 10 years. The first census was held in 1951, four years after independence. The first four censuses from 1951 to 1981 were conducted on time, but the fifth (in 1998) and sixth (in 2017) censuses were delayed due to different reasons.

Officials believed that the digital census would make it easier to identify and correct irregularities. The government of Pakistan had also launched a regular mobile application for self-enumeration. This self-enumeration portal/application was inaugurated on Feb 20, 2023. The first digital census in Pakistan was officially launched on March 01, while the self-enrolment application was open till Mar 10th.

EAT News talked to Dr. Naeem Zafar, Head of the Pakistan Statistics Bureau (PSB) on this issue. He said, “According to this digital census the population of Pakistan is more than 249.56 million. Our population has increased significantly by 49 million since the last census, indicating a substantial growth rate. More than PKR 34 billion were spent on this whole process of the digital census”.

The province-wise population details are as under:

• Punjab 127.47 million
• Sindh 57.93 million
• Khyber Pakhtunkhwa 39.82 million
• Balochistan 21.97 million
• Federal Territory Islamabad 2.3 million

Dr. Naeem Zafar added, “Not a single economic census has been conducted ever in Pakistan. The economic census is very important for the growth, development, and planning of the country. This tells you in which sectors the government needs help to increase employment or more infrastructure. An economic census is a comprehensive measure of a country’s economy that provides data on its industries, various sectors, and markets. PBS, for the first time, collected information about special people with different types of disabilities in the country”.

The whole exercise (digital census) was assigned to PBS and 126 thousand census enumerators completed the process transparently. For this purpose, the same number of digital tablets have been purchased by the government. Each digital tablet was associated with one enumerator.

Every enumerator was responsible for collecting information from two census blocks. A “block” is the geographical unit for the census, usually consisting of 200-250 houses. In totality, the country was divided into 185,509 census blocks. People who do not have Computerized National Identity Cards (CNIC) were also counted in this census. This effort (digital census) was aimed to end the controversies connected with the previous census (2017) and to count the population transparently, so the results of this census should be accepted by all stakeholders.

Talking about the reasons why the census process is controversial every time, renowned economist, demographer and public finance expert Dr. Asim Bashir Khan told EAT News, “The most important issue is the distribution of resources in terms of population. Because of this, each province wants to increase its share of population which will automatically boost its share of resources. It is important to understand that the census process is completely decentralized. If we look at the preliminary planning of the census, the digital maps and the training of the staff are arranged and executed by PSB (a federal institution), while all the enumerators working in the field belong to the provincial governments. So if there is any irregularity in census data, it has nothing to do with federation because field staff was working under the supervision of local and provincial administration. The majority of resource allocation in Pakistan is based on population. According to the National Finance Commission Award, population-based resource allocation in Pakistan is 82%, that’s why every province wants high numbers in the population”.

Different political and nationalist parties have expressed their concern over the census. Prime Minister of Pakistan Mr. Muhammad Shahbaz Sharif gave special instructions to the concerned quarters to make the census process transparent and to remove objections raised by different political parties.

Independent experts believe that some issues created controversies for the current digital census including improper advertisement by the government, lack of interest by people, and political parties, and less mobilization of political workers. In principle, the leaders of the political parties should have mobilized the workers across the country, making them aware of the importance of the census, just as they mobilize their workers for victory during the election campaign.

In today’s modern era, a population census has extraordinary importance for proper policy-making in countries around the world. Census is the collection and organization of all the information and data about the people living in a particular country or region under a defined procedure.

In Pakistan, a census is not just a population count but it is used to estimate the problems, allocation of resources, distribution of funds to the provinces through the National Finance Commission (NFC), and quotas in government jobs. Seats in the National Assembly and constituencies are also linked with the census.