While the country’s first digital population count is in its final stages, complaints of use of paper forms by enumerators have been surfacing in Karachi.The Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS), which is mandated to hold the census under the General Statistics (Reorganization) Act 2011, has repeatedly asserted that paper forms should not be used in the digital census.
However, PBS officials also say that the census operations are supervised by the provincial administrations and assistant commissioners who must ensure enumeration to be strictly done on tablets.
On the recommendations of the Census Advisory Committee (CAC), the PBS gave a provision of a secured self-enumeration portal to everyone in Pakistan in a bid to make the “process more transparent and widely accepted by the masses in order to build confidence building measures on this national level assignment.”
The process of self-enumeration kicked off on February 20 and was supposed to last until March 3. However, at the request of the Sindh government, the date was extended until March 10.Speaking at a Twitter Space on Saturday night, PBS Coordinator Muhammad Sarwar Gondal maintained that the operations of enumerations were taking place under the provincial government.Another official of the PBS told media that they had issued strict directions against the use of paper forms that had to be implemented by the assistant commissioners working under the Sindh government.
However, he said the PBS could not take any action against the negligent assistant commissioners. The PBS has formed 37 census districts in Karachi based on cantonment areas and subdivisions. The assistant commissioners and chief executive officers of the cantonment areas are responsible for the census districts in their respective areas.
