Fresh estimates: Census cost soars to Rs30.24bn

ZAHEER ABBASI

ISLAMABAD: Finance Ministry has reportedly been informed that as per fresh estimates, Rs30.24 billion would be required for census against the earlier estimates of Rs14.5 billion.

Sources in the Finance Ministry on condition of anonymity told Business Recorder that a meeting has taken place between the representatives of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government and secretary finance on Tuesday on the issue of at source deduction by Finance Division of its share in the cost of census.

They said the province was not happy with any deduction from its share and raised the issue with the Finance Division. The secretary finance has reportedly stated that as the decision of cost sharing was taken by Council of Common Interests so if the province has any reservations, it should move the CCI in this regard.

However, when contacted, Chief Statistician Asif Bajwa expressed his ignorance about escalation of census expenditure to Rs30.22 billion but acknowledged that there would be some increase but the exact amount is still unclear.

Bajwa said that the focus of Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) is to ensure transparency in the population census and it has decided to involve armed forces to lend it credibility. We are also addressing the concerns expressed by some quarters, he added.

He said that international observers from western countries and UN would be invited to observe the process and all focus is on the aspect of lending credibility to the census. He said that there is also punishment and financial plenty for giving wrong information of households during the census. There would be 120,000 people from civil side, other than 200,000 army men, in the census whose first phase would begin on March 15 and conclude on April 15.

He said then there would be a break of 10 days to allow law-enforcement agencies and enumerators to move to the districts of second phase. All the capital cities would be covered in the first phase while second phase of the census would start from April 25 and end on May 25, he added.

The census data of both the phases from all districts would reach the PBS by the first week of June 2017 and provisional results summary would be available within 60 days after the completion of the census; however, announcement of detailed results would take one-and-a-half-year, Bajwa said.

Sources said that a total of 120,000 civilians enumerators, supervisors as well as 10 percent reserved people would be involved in the exercise in addition to the army personnel. Bajwa said that PBS has given briefing to the chief secretaries of the al the provinces and maintained that provincial governments are on board. Another official on condition of anonymity said that 16,000 to 17,000 vehicles would be hired for the exercise. The PBS would count all the people living in the country in the census irrespective of their citizenship or legal status with reference date of March 18, 2017.

The Afghans would be counted but heir proof of registration (POR) cards would be mentioned for their identification of nationality. All the Afghans living in the country would be counted and their data would be taken from their camp administration. The Afghans would be counted because they are accessing the system.