Census 2023: Date extended for 19 cities.

PBS urges citizens to ensure full participation and cooperation

ISLAMABAD – The number of the registered voters in the country has gone up to 125,626,930 (125.6 million) including 67.8 million male and 57.7 million female voters.

The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Monday released the latest data of registered voters across the country.

The ratio between the male and female voters in Pakistan is 54 per cent and 46 per cent respectively.

The electoral watchdog also released the data in terms of age according to which at least 26 per cent of the voters are in the age group of 26 to 35 years.

According to the report, the number of voters in Punjab is 71.5 million, while the number of voters in Sindh is 26.3 million.

The number of voters in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is 21.4 million, the number of voters in Baluchistan is 5.2 million and the number of voters in Islamabad is 1.2 million.

Meanwhile,

The federal government has extended the deadline for ongoing Pakistan’s first-ever digital population and housing census till April 15 for 19 cities,

The 7th population and housing census was to be officially culminated today (April 10), but the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics has decided to increase the date for some cities in order to ensure the complete coverage of the population and leftover houses.

Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) spokesperson Sarwar Gondal said that the extension of the census will be applied to 19 cities and security would be provided to the census staff in the relevant cities. “Census work in Karachi, Islamabad, Lahore, and Rawalpindi will continue till April 15, he said adding that the work will continue in 14 cities of Gilgit-Baltistan and Balochistan till April 15.

PBS Spokesman said 100 percent of census work has been completed in 131 districts of the country. At least 99 percent of census work has been completed in Punjab and KP provinces.

Sarwar Gondal further informed that 98% of work is completed in Sindh province.

The census work in Islamabad has been completed by 90 percent and 82 percent of the work is completed in Balochistan.

He said a proposal from Provincial Census Commissioners was solicited requesting more time to complete the leftover work in the cities.

PBS has been executing the ongoing census digitally for the first time, with census field operations commencing on March 1 without any interruption.

“The successful execution of the digital census is a great success and it is a moment of great pride for the nation as it is the largest South Asian digital census to date. The overall progress of the census is very encouraging and satisfactory,” the statement mentioned.

So far, the data of over 97% of listed households have been collected to date through tablets across the country and only less than 3% of census fieldwork has been left, particularly in metropolitan cities of various provinces and other few cities of Balochistan.

The census fieldwork has been covered and completed data gathering in over 99% of Punjab, 98% of Sindh, 90% of Islamabad and 82% of Balochistan, while the census work has almost been completed in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Azad Jammu and Kashmir.

PBS enumerators have completed 100% of census work in 131 districts out of 156 districts across the country, while 70% to 80% of census work is done in the remaining 25 districts and work is in progress.

“It is pertinent to mention that the work completion percentage may slightly increase after the synchronisation of data from some completed blocks, which fall in the offline zone. The completion of census work is over 97% across the country is a landmark achievement and will pave the way for a new era for prosperous Pakistan,” the PBS wrote stated.

According to the sources PBS has also suggested an enumeration re-check in around 30,000 buildings of more than four storeys in Karachi, and sent the list of those buildings to the Sindh government as its officers have been performing the census duties in the city.

The monitoring team of the PBS has identified 40,000 buildings throughout the country where they fear that some households might not have been counted. Of such buildings, around 30,000 belong to Karachi.

The PBS chief statistician, Dr Naeemuz Zafar has physically shown a few of such buildings to the provincial census commissioner in Karachi and asked relevant assistant commissioners to revisit them for the census count.