PESHAWAR: Pakistan has launched its first ever census in the past two decades. The week-long process, will deploy a team of over 300,000 people and involve 55 million forms, along with a separate form to be distributed by the military.
A teacher wearing a yellow Pakistan Census 2017 jacket, Nadeem Ehsan said, "It's a very hectic process, but we are ready for it. We had some reservations about security initially, but we are assured about it by the government." Pak is the sixth most populous country in the world, with an estimated 200 million people. It has, however, not held a census since 1998 due to years of internal fights between politicians.
The counting will become the base to revise political boundaries, parliamentary seat allocations, and finances, as the country prepares for a national election next year. The Pakistan Bureau of Statistics will deploy some 119,000 people, including 84,000 enumerators. Teachers and local officials will go door to door to count homes, and then individuals. Paki army said it will dispatch up to 200,000 troops for the exercise, including 44,000 participating directly in the census-taking and making a parallel count using a second form.
PBS' chief statistician, Asif Bajwa said the army would act only as 'observers' to ensure enumerators did not inflate local counting.
