Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: The Statistics Division has informed the Supreme Court that the armed forces are currently not available for deployment with the census staff to make the census process transparent and credible. The Statistics Division stated that it could not give a schedule for a fresh census due to unavailability of army personnel for this purpose. In January this year, the census commissioner told the media that more than 350,000 troops were required for the census exercise. He said that one soldier was required for each of the 167,000 census blocks, while more security personnel were needed to maintain law and order during the census process. The Statistics Division on Thursday submitted a concise statement to the top court after Chief Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali took suo motu notice of the delay in census. The chief justice ordered the court staff to issue notices to the attorney general for Pakistan and the secretary of the Statistics Division and summon them to the court to explain reasons for postponement of census in the country. The court will take up the suo motu case on Friday (today). The court had taken suo motu notice of the delay in census on media reports, which said the government was not initiating the census process due to logistic issues as well as a lack of political will.