Digital Census.

After months of preparation, the first digital census of Pakistan finally kicked off on March 1, with the portal open for citizens to register their household numbers for the national count. This has been needed for a while considering that we were still relying on the dated method of having census workers visit every house and manually carry out the count. There was a need to move past this model, but whether we will be moving away from errors and the hang-ups of the old system is still questionable.

In theory, the move towards a digital headcount is preferable as it reduces the cost of staff needed to run the expensive exercise and allows for faster data collection with potentially increased transparency. Whether this will be executed the right way, however, is still questionable. There have been concerns raised on how actively citizens will participate in the census in the days to come-the self-mission aspect certainly requires the active participation of as many households as possible.

But in practice, even in urban centres such as Lahore, a significant portion of the...