PBS asked to form bodies under General Statistics Reorganisation Act

ISLAMABAD: Secretary Planning Development and Special Initiatives Mathar Niaz Rana on Monday directed the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) to complete all the bodies formed under the General Statistics Re-organization Act, 2011, and come up with a roadmap of the activities with timelines and specific objectives to achieve for the next year.

The directives were issued by the secretary during his visit to the bureau. The secretary also chaired a meeting on the activities and initiatives taken by the PBS regarding digital transformation.

Sarwar Gondal, member Support Services and Resource Management PBS briefed the secretary about the activities of the PBS and major initiatives taken by the PBS during the last two years regarding digital transformation.

The secretary was informed that the PBS had shifted from manual data collection to electronic data collection, and had achieved an in-house capacity to develop android-based data collection software, mobile apps and dashboards.

It was further informed that the PBS was developing decision support systems and data dissemination systems, which would enable the policy makers to take evidence-based decision making.

The PBS officials briefed the secretary that the PBS had successfully conducted census and survey such as mouza census, the PSLM/HIES survey etc, and the data will be disseminated to the policy makers and general public through dashboards in a user-friendly manner.

The Secretary Planning appreciated the efforts of the PBS, and said that reliable and timely data helped the policy makers to take informed decisions.

He said PBS had vast repository of data and specialised research activities should be started within the PBS to provide the policy makers' evidence-based information.

The secretary emphasized that the PBS should complete all the bodies formed under the General Statistics Re-organization Act, 2011, and should fill up all the vacant posts.

He further directed the PBS to come up with the issues faced by the department and make a roadmap of the activities with timelines and specific objectives to achieve for the next year.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2020