ISLAMABAD: The National Assembly was informed on Monday that the government is committed to hold population census next month, depending upon availability of army personnel for provision of security.

Responding to a question in the lower house, Parliamentary Secretary for Finance, Revenue and Statistics Rana Muhammad Afzal said the government has allocated Rs12 billion for holding population and housing census.

"The provincial governments would provide field force while the military will provide security as decided in the Council of Common Interests (CCI)," said Afzal.

On March 18, 2015, a meeting of CCI chaired by the prime Minister had decided to carry out the country’s sixth population census in March 2016 with support of the armed forces.

Related: Pakistan to hold population census in March 2016, with military support

The governing council of the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS), headed by Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, had approved a revised timeline for the census in a meeting held on January 2.

The preliminary results of the census will have to be completed by June this year, while other aspects, including district-wise data reports, will have to be completed by Dec 2017.

During that meeting it was agreed that qualified and highly reputed statisticians would be co-opted as members of the technical committee to benefit from their expertise.

Dar had directed that frequent meetings of the technical committee will be conducted until the census was held and suggestions of experts will be brought to the governing council for consideration.

National Finance Commission (NFC) award, delimitation of electoral constituencies, seat shares in parliament, local bodies polls, targeted subsidies, and all other policy matters that rest on population data are all built around the availability of census data which was turning obsolete as the last census in the country was carried out in 1998.