Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Military Operations Directorate of Pakistan Army informed the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) that it could not make available a large number of army personnel to hold a census. PBC, during a meeting pertaining to holding a census, apprised the directorate that the total requirements come to 288,000 people, including a security and command structure for man to man deployment of armed forces personnel with the civilian enumerators.

“Such a large number of Army troops cannot be spared by the Army during the current calendar year due to their pre-occupation in security related tasks,” the Directorate of Military Operations responded. However, the directorate assured that the availability position will be reassessed in November-December of this year. The PBS stated in its concise statement that in pursuance to the Council of Common Interest (CCI) decision, the department had held meetings with the Military Operations Directorate for sharing of manpower requirement for the census.

The PBS said that there was a possibility of using alternate methodology for conducting the census in phases and using electronic devices for census and data collection.

“Statistic division/PBS held meetings with NADRA authorities to use their database. The hardware and software requirement along with total financial cost of the proposal are being worked out along with a time frame,” it stated.

However, it further stated, the total duration of census may not exceed more than eight weeks to avoid response bias, internal/external migration and double counting of individuals.

It said that the Directorate of Military Operations had agreed that the census might be conducted in phases, which would curtail the manpower requirement. The PBS said that it had completed preparations for using traditional methods for conducting the census through paper questionnaires. “ICR technology is planned to be used for data processing which will curtail data processing time to a minimum,” PBS said.