Pakistan's largest-ever population census kicked off on Wednesday in 63 districts of the country after a delay of 19 years.
Thousands of enumerators accompanied by some 175,000 army personnel began the enormous, politically charged count today. The weeks-long process will deploy a team of more than 300,000 people and involve 55 million forms — as well as a second, separate form distributed by the military.
The first census in the country was conducted in 1951, the second in 1961, the third in 1972, instead of 1971 due to political turmoil, and the fourth in 1981. The fifth census, which was due in 1991, was conducted in March 1998 with the help of the army.
Under the constitution, the government is bound to conduct a census every 10 years.
Officials from the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics collect information from residents during a census in a narrow street in Karachi. — AFP
An enumerator marks a house after collecting information from a resident during a census in Karachi. — AFP
Cameramen and photographers document as a census enumerator enters in a building during Pakistan's 6th population census in Karachi. —Reuters
A woman interacts with an official from the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics as an army soldier stands guard in Lahore. — AFP
A government official collects data from a resident during a survey in Karachi. —AP
Another enumerator marks a house as a resident looks on during country's enormous, politically charged census. ─AFP
Officials from the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics wait for resident outside a house to collect information during the census as an army soldier stands guard in Karachi. —AFP
An enumerator marks a house after collecting information from a resident during a census as army soldier stands guard in Lahore. —AFP
A census enumerator notes details from a resident during Pakistan’s 6th population census in Karachi. ─Reuters
A herd of goats passes by as a government official collects data from a resident for the census in Karachi. —AP
Pakistani employees of Pakistan Bureau of Statistics and the headquarters of Population Census 2017, speak on public helplines to give information about census in Islamabad. — AFP
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Comments (26) Closed
after a long time I saw pictures of my loving streets. Great PAKISTAN
Is this a head count or looking for criminal with gun men around. What a shame.
Why arent they not counting overseas pakistanis. My entire family is being omitted due to this. And there are many pakistanis like me spread globally
PML N will make a mockery, corruption of this data collected. I assure every Pakistani.
@Mohammed That stage that you are mentioning is next. De-weaponisation and door to door checking
@Muhammad The concept of census is to count individuals living in Pakistan, not overseas. That is the standard worldwide.
@Mohammed Well considering that polio workers get shot while trying to give kids polio drops, it is necessary to provide security to individuals who are expected to visit every single house in every single locality of every single city.
Which part of Karachi is this..show the real pictures....
@MUHAMMAD totally agree. Overseas pakistanis should be counted and their address registered.
Now imagine, the officials collecting data were using a tablet connected to Nadira data base via. cloud service. As they collect data directly onto the tablet, the IDs and addresses get confirmed and data get updated in real time. Residents signature on electronic data form would also attest to their account.
How much time and effort saving could have been by using IoT and DDA!!
These teams should have been accompanied by Nadra registration staff. The Nadra staff could have done preliminary registration with pending verification of the unregistered residents. Finger print verification could have caught duplicate registration.
Pakistan is a beautiful country.
Census must be transparent, video of lady is circulating doing census with pencil ( pen is recommended ) . When asked by Gulstan e Jauhar community, she said that she will fill it in office. It seems that enumerators are not following procedure.
A team of 300000 out of which 175000 are military personnel. There must be local police too in the remaining 125000. Even though there are none, the ratio still looks skewed. What is the need for so many army personnel just for an harmless, administrative exercise like the census?
@KHALID YOUSAFZAI (UK) : And those streets need lot of help, such as sanitation, property line respect and water sewer gas power infrastructure.
@Mohammed As You never now, what may come up. Preparation must be there.!
So nice to see pictures from DAWN they are always world class. Love to see, celebration and occasions pics here.
Last time when census took place I think we had one or two tv station/media outlets. Now it's like I can't count. So many jobs have been created in this media Industry, so much improvement in last 20 years it's just amazing to see. Thank you President Pervez Musharraf for opening up the media, Nice. Keep up the good work in picture journalism Dawn.
@haroon Keep your weapons just don't used them on innocent or that stage you have mentioned will happen.
Why is this necessary? Shouldn't we get the headcount directly from Nadra? They have all the NICs registered and family members registered as well.
Simply a mere Census at gun point! !!kudos
i dont get why people here criticizing govn for doing this. population projection should be done every ten years. it is done in all western countries. it is sad that it has not been done for past 20 years. we should be happy that finally govern is doing the right thing. Dont compare this with searching criminals in houses. both are separate things and are done by separate departments.
well done DAWN for superb pics
Why would a census be politically charged. Isn't it just a head count. I do not understand
@MUHAMMAD Bro use common sense!! I think government have data about over seas Pakistanis and they can be easily counted in census.
In a couple of pictures, the data is being written in pencil which can be easily manipulated. The residents must ensure that the data is written in pen so as to reduce chances of manipulation at a later stage.
@kerala No to hate yaar.
By the way I love Kerala so much such a beautiful place, I have many friends who live in Gulf who are originally from Kerala.
@Tanya Reasons: Job quota, assembly seats, are just some of the reasons