The Council of Common Interests on Friday agreed to begin Pakistan's sixth population census on March 15, 2017, a statement from the Prime Minister's Office said.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif presided over a meeting of the council, which was attended by all the chief ministers.

During the meeting it was decided that the census will be carried out in close coordination between provincial governments and that there will be a committee comprising the secretary statistics and four chief secretaries to address all implementation issues.

Participants of the meeting agreed that the house listing and census operation may be carried out in one go, and the census may be held in two phases.

Each phase may be carried out in all the provinces simultaneously, they agreed.

Earlier in the week, the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics issued a gazette notification saying the country’s sixth population and housing census will be carried out in March-April next year, that is, after a delay of eight years.

The notification has been issued after the Supreme Court took suo motu notice of the delay in carrying out the much-needed exercise and ordered that it be conducted in the mentioned months.

The decennial census has been overdue since 2008. The last census was conducted in 1998, after a delay of seven years.