The Finance Ministry is reported to have said that the cost of the census can escalate to as high as Rs 30.24 billion from an earlier estimate of Rs 14.5 billion, reported a national daily. Sources in the Finance Ministry have confirmed that a meeting has taken place between the representatives of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government and secretary finance earlier this week on the issue of at source deduction by Finance Division of its share in the cost of the census.
It has been reported that the province is not happy with its proportion in cost sharing of the consensus. The secretary finance is reported to have asked the province to divert the issue to the Council of Common Interests (CCI) since it was the CCI that drafted the cost sharing proportions. However, when contacted, Chief Statistician Asif Bajwa expressed his ignorance about the escalation of census expenditure to Rs 30.24 billion but acknowledged the escalation of the census costs to an unestimated degree.
Bajwa said that the focus of Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) is to ensure transparency in the population census and it has decided to involve armed forces to lend it credibility. “We are also addressing the concerns expressed by some quarters,” he added. As many as 120,000 people from civil side, other than 200,000 army men, are likely to be involved in the census which will commence on March 15 and conclude on April 15. The second phase of the census will start on April 25 and end on May 25.The census data of both the phases from all districts would reach the PBS by the first week of June 2017 and provisional results summary would be available within 60 days after the completion of the census; however, the announcement of detailed results would take one-and-a-half-year, Bajwa said.
He also assured that international observers from western countries and UN would be invited to observe the process and lend credibility to the census.
