PBS onducted an interactive session with senior media personnel at Provincial Census Coordination Centre
Pakistan Bureau of Statistics conducted an interactive session with senior media personnel at Provincial Census Coordination Centre (P3C) Lahore. The main purpose was to brief media personnel about the scope, background and importance of Pakistan’s upcoming first Digital Census. Given the media’s influence on how people think and act, the media will be the Ambassadors of PBS to positively and fully convey the Census message to all audiences. Moreover, cooperation from Media can help PBS to get the required response and coverage of this important national exercise.
Chief Census Commissioner Dr Naeem uz Zafar started his briefing with approval of the results of the 6th Population and Housing Census. He then explained the Digital Census’ background, focusing on the Council of Common Interest (CCI) decision to conduct the 7th Population and Housing Census using Modern technology and taking on board stakeholders from planning to data dissemination. He emphasised on untiring efforts of PBS in planning and preparing for the smooth execution of the Census. The process involved reviewing the lesson learnt from the previous Census, taking guidelines from UN Principles, a thorough review of the world’s best practices, consent of renowned demographers and involvement of stakeholders and collaborating partners. PBS, with collaborating partners, has conducted a successful Pilot Census for testing tools and techniques. Three tiers of training have also been completed all over Pakistan.
Mr. Muhammad Sarwar Gondal, Member (Support Services/ Resource Management) explained the scope of the upcoming Census, which will not be just a head count but will provide a baseline for evidence-based Policy Making.
He emphasized that this briefing aims to inform the media and opinion makers that the main objective of Census is to provide credible and reliable data for policy and planning to improve people’s lives. He apprised the participants about PBS’s role in implementing smart lockdown by using the Census 2017 data at block level, where geo coordinates of patients were populated at block level and correlation with different variables made to impose smart lockdown, which was a huge success story of Pakistan. He requested media for effective communication of the main objective of the Census as the “power of media can help in achieving the goal of successful census with broader acceptability .” The complete execution of the Census will enable PBS to geo-tag all structures of Pakistan. Real-time monitoring, involvement of stakeholders, geo-tagging, tablet-based data collection, self-enumeration, centralised decision-making, 24-hour complaint management system, standardised training and quality assurance through Computer Assisted Telephonic Interviews(CATI) will increase transparency and credibility of this exercise. Data collected through this process will be acceptable and provide a basis for a developed Pakistan.
All the queries and ambiguities of the participants were resolved during the question/ answer session.
At the end of the session, the detailed videos of Call Center, GIS Lab, and Census Control Center were displayed to the participants. The media personnel attending the session appreciated the efforts and role of PBS in digitising Census process, paving the way for a digital and modern Pakistan.
