ISLAMABAD: The Pak­istan Bureau of Stat­istics (PBS) has asked the Nat­i­o­nal Database and Regis­t­ration Authority (Nadra) to provide provincial governments with access to the census monitoring dashboard by Wednesday (today) to alleviate doubts and ensure transparency.

An official source said on Tuesday census field operations were responsibility of provinces and the onus for providing the required information to them now lay with Nadra.

The direction came from the statistics bureau after a decision taken in the eighth meeting of the census monitoring committee held on March 11 under the chairmanship of Plan­n­­­ing Minister Ahsan Iqbal.

As per the decision, Sindh has asked to include statistics in the monitoring dashboard. The information on the dashboard relates to blocks, listed blocks, enumerated blocks, listed households, enumerated households and population.

The chief statistician, Dr Naeemuz Zafar, in a letter asked Nadra Chairman Tariq Malik to give access to the provincial government to this data on the dashboard. The access has already been granted to chief secretaries.

Mr Zafar asked Nadra to ensure access was provided to all DCs and ACs at all census district levels by March 15 for broader involvement, transparency and credibility.

According to the PBS, 121,000 enumerators are in the field.

Published in Dawn, March 15th, 2023