Minister for Finance Ishaq Dar Saturday directed the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) authorities that utmost care should be taken to complete process of population and house census in a transparent manner.
Such data can then form the basis for future planning; he said this while chairing the 9th meeting of the Governing Council of Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS).
He mentioned that census was being conducted after a gap of 17 years adding that it was the prime responsibility of PBS to conduct credible census.
It was agreed that qualified and highly reputed statisticians would be co-opted as members of the technical committee to provide their professional input on conduct of census.
The minister directed that frequent meetings of the technical committee be held leading up to the census and suggestions of experts be brought to the governing council for consideration.
The chair at the outset welcomed the newly appointed PBS members and mentioned that they had joined the organization at a very crucial time, a couple of months before the 6th Population & Housing Census -2016.
They will have to shoulder the responsibility of making the census successful, he said.
The agenda of the meeting was adopted and the implementation status of the decisions taken in previous meeting was reviewed.
The chief statistician, PBS gave a detailed presentation on the preparations for the forthcoming census in the country.
He informed the house that, as per decision of the governing council, PBS had adjusted the target dates for preparation of census reports by December 2017.
The minister, along with all the participants, on the occasion also bid farewell to the outgoing Secretary Statistics Division, Israr Ahmad Malik, who is retiring on January 4, and prayed for his good health.
