ISLAMABAD: Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives Ahsan Iqbal has directed the Census teams to strictly ensure completion of the field verification of 7th Population and Housing Census in the areas with abnormal growth till May 15.

According to a Radio Pakistan’s report, the Planning Minister issued the direction while chairing a follow up meeting in Islamabad, in pursuance of the 12th meeting of the Census Monitoring Committee and meeting with Demographers and Political parties.

The Planning Minister said Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has taken strict notice of the repeated extensions of field enumeration activities of the Census. He said therefore, targeted verification and enumeration operations should be carried out in areas with abnormal Population Growth. He stressed that special efforts should be made in urban areas of Punjab, Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Islamabad Capital Territory to counter issues of under coverage and low coverage.

The Minister directed that a uniform data-driven policy must be adopted to conclude the field enumeration in all provinces. He said along with under-enumeration, the digital system has also identified over-counting and cases where census exercise has been manipulated or tampered, which has resulted in abnormal trends. He directed the concerned teams to address these cases strictly to avoid such incidences in future.