Islamabad: Chief Census Commissioner Asif Bajwa said on Friday that three new data entry codes for disabled persons, whom the Supreme Court on Thursday ordered to include in the ongoing count, have been communicated to enumeration officers all over Pakistan.
Bajwa was speaking at a press conference to address the most persistent concerns regarding the census, which kicked off on March 15.
On March 16, the SC had ordered the federal government and the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) to amend census forms to include persons with disabilities and transgender people in the headcount exercise which commenced a day earlier.
LHC Chief Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah had observed that information regarding disability could be easily included in Form 2-A’s Column No3, which pertains to sex by assigning codes for disabled citizens.
“In the ‘sex’ column of the census form, three codes were previously allotted: ‘1’ was for male, ‘2’ was for female and ‘3’ was for transgender residents. On the orders of the Supreme Court, ‘4’ for disabled men, ‘5’ for disabled women and ‘6’ for the disabled transgenders have been added to the code sequence,” Bajwa explained during the conference.
The commissioner reiterated that all enumeration officers have been informed of these new instructions.