MoU Signing Ceremony between PBS and NADRA held in Islamabad

UNVEIL OF 7^TH DIGITAL POPULATION AND HOUSING CENSUSU LOGO

Islamabad,(Parliament Times): MoU Signing Ceremony between PBS and NADRA for development of census software and Tablet provision was held at National Census Coordination Centre (N3C), PBS Head office, Islamabad. Professor Ahsan Iqbal, Federal Minister of Planning, Development and Special initiatives was Chief Guest at the occasion. Besides, the logo of 7^th Digital Population and Housing Census was also unveiled by Mr. Ahsan Iqbal. Representatives from collaborating partners i.e., NADRA, NTC, SUPARCO, delegates from Ministry of Planning, Development and Special Initiatives, Dr. Naeem uz Zafar, Chief Statistician, Mr. Muhammad Sarwar Gondal, Member Support Services / Resource management, Mr. Ayazuddin, Member Census and Surveys and other senior officers from PBS were also present on the occasion.

Dr. Naeem uz Zafar, Chief Statistician welcomed the guests and informed that NADRA will provide software and tablets for the upcoming 7^th 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.

Mr. Tariq Malik, Chairman NADRA 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 will 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 Mr. Tariq Malik, Chairman NADRA signed the MoU.

Mr. Ahsan Iqbal, Minister, Planning Development and Special Initiatives congratulated PBS and NADRA. He further added that both PBS and NADRA are 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. Digitization will increase the transparency but digital technology is dependent on software capacity. In the end, he hoped that PBS will timely provide census results to Election Commission for delimitation of boundaries. He said that Census is 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.

In the end, Shields with Census logo was presented to Prof Ahsan Iqbal and other collaborating partners.