Govt to seek CCI approval for new census schedule.

ISLAMABAD -- Amid a delay of around six months in the holding of seventh national housing and population census, the government on Monday decided to seek approval of the CouAncil of Common Interests (CCI) for a fresh schedule under which final results could be handed over to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) no earlier than April 30, 2023.

Under the original schedule, the results were to be submitted to the ECP by mid-December - a deadline that would now actually be the starting point.

Minister for Planning, DevAelopment and Special IniAtAiAaAtives Ahsan Iqbal direActed the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) to send a fresh summary to the CCI and Prime Minister's Office with a fresh timeline over the 7th Digital Census 2022.

According to an official statement, the minister made these directions while chairing a meeting to review progress on the census. The meeting was attended by the secretary of planning commission, the PBS chief, chairman of the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) and other officials.

The PBS chief told the meeting that the earlier summary had been submitted after an agreement with Nadra for conduct of census from Oct 15, 2022 to Nov 15, 2022. However, he added, due to delay in opening of the letter of credit because of prevailing economic situation, Nadra was unable to provide the required number of tablets, saying that all 126,000 tablets would be handed over in installments by December while the census ERP (complete software solutions) by Oct 15, for testing.

The PBS arranged the training of master trainers and trainers at the divisional level in November and December. However, as training at the tehsil level for 120,000 field staff and field work cannot be initiated before the complete handover of tablets, the timelines had been...