PBS, NADRA sign agreement for development of census software and tablet provision

F.P. Report

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) and National Database Registration Authority (NADRA) Monday signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the development of census software and Tablet provision here at National Census Coordination Centre (N3C), PBS Head office. Federal Minister of Planning, Development and Special initiatives, Professor Ahsan Iqbal was chief guest at the occasion. Besides, the logo of 7th Digital Population and Housing Census was also unveiled by Ahsan Iqbal.
Representatives from collaborating partners like NADRA, NTC, SUPARCO, delegates from Ministry of Planning, Development and Special Initiatives and officers from PBS were also present at the occasion. Dr. Naeem uz Zafar, Chief Statistician welcomed the guests and informed that NADRA would provide software and tablets for the upcoming 7th Digital Population and Housing Census.
The software is being developed after detailed information sharing and extensive consultations between PBS and NADRA.
Software development is a major milestone which is almost mature and Census software that will be provided by NADRA has 16 modules.
He also delivered a brief presentation on Census process and the mechanism of monitoring census activities and confidence building of stakeholders.
Chairman NADRA Tariq Malik considered it to be an honour for his organization to be a collaborating partner in a National activity like Census.
He announced that the software provided by NADRA would be a comprehensive application for household listing, enumeration and will be linked with GPS control. It will ensure data security and NADRA will also provide 24 hours Technical help during census exercise. After successful execution of Pilot Census, the scope will be extended to full enumeration.
Dr. Naeem uz Zafar, Chief Statistician and Tariq Malik, Chairman NADRA signed the MoU.
Ahsan Iqbal said that both PBS and NADRA were important organizations.
As PBS collects data for development of country and NADRA maintains a comprehensive automated registration system for the country. Census is an important activity linked with resource allocation, delimitation and policy making, he said adding that digitization would increase the transparency but digital technology was dependent on software capacity.
In the end, he hoped that PBS would timely provide census results to Election Commission for delimitation of boundaries. He said that Census was a difficult task which cannot be completed without extensive hard work. The efforts of everyone who take part in it are appreciable specially the enumerator who are involved in data collection process.