Govt extends census till May 15 amid concerns raised by political parties
Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) spokesperson Sarwar Gondal said digital census, which was originally set to end on April 30, will now continue until May 15. In order to develop a strategy for carrying out census during this extended period, Gondal stated that a meeting with chief secretaries will be held on Saturday.
Spokesperson further stated that request made by political parties regarding extension of census will be presented to census monitoring committee during a meeting.
Decision to extend census period was prompted by revelation that the populations of Karachi and Lahore had shown minimal growth since last census conducted in 2017.
During briefing, the PBS urged political parties to assist in identifying any areas that had not been covered by census teams.
Mr Sarwar explained that bureau would require an additional 15 days to complete data analysis before submitting it to the Council of Common Interests (CCI) by June.
An official announcement issued after meeting showed that 237.448 million individuals had been counted in all four provinces, an increase of 29.768 million since 2017 when tally was 207.68m.
Meanwhile, speaking to media persons in Islamabad, Minister for Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal said data being compiled by digital census will be easy to verify and analyze.
He said reservations of different political parties about census will be addressed.