TAXILA: Deputy Commissioner Rao Atif Raza on Wednesday said 87 teams of field enumerators would carry the first ever digital population and housing census in Attock district.

Talking to newsmen after formally inaugurating the census by marking a shop, he said the district has been divided into 1,716 blocks and teams would visit these blocks for collection of digital data.

Responding to a question, he said the digital census was aimed at cutting costs and improving accuracy as the evidence-based authentic data as per international standards would be used for delimitation of constituencies in the next general elections as well as for public policy planning.

He added key demographic data on urbanisation, migration, the size of different age groups, people’s ethnic and linguistic backgrounds, genders, including those who were transgender, educational qualifications and disabilities would also be collected during the exercise. He said the exercise was vital to determining the future needs of the country.

Responding to another question, he said security arrangements had also been made for the census staff and police and army personnel would be deployed keeping in view the sensitivity of the area.

The DC said that the process would be completed by April 1 while data collected would be released by 30th of next month.

District population censuses officer Rao Tasleem talking to newsmen on this occasion said 870 field enumerators wearing green jackets would collect data across the six tehsils of Attock.

Published in Dawn, March 2nd, 2023