After a delay, the seventh national census campaign will finally continue from February to March of this year and in preparation, the government has announced the self-enumeration facility through which masses will be able to submit their information on the Pakistan Bureau of Statistic’s platform online.
Most provincial governments have already begun the digital census process, and as many as 33 districts of the country have completed the project. In order to mobilise a greater number of people to ensure that the census is successfully concluded by March, the government announced the self-enumeration facility.
The initiative is intended to improve the quality of data collection through real-time monitoring, enables geo-tagging, and incorporates computer-assisted telephone interviews to gain quality assurance. And in a Pakistan where people are fully aware of their social responsibilities, have the means to access such facilities and are equipped with an understanding of how to use it, this would be a successful initiative, but the reality of our country is quite different.
What the government has done through self-enumeration is limiting the practice to a select minority that is able to afford the means through which they can access online platforms and have the ability to use it correctly. This means that self-enumeration will become classified to urban centers only, leaving much to be desired for rural and far-flung areas that already receive little state attention. In the long term, this would entail that resource allocation and distribution is not equitable.
There is also another question of transparency and accuracy. Digital and self-enumeration is more prone to human and technological errors that compromise on the accuracy of information collected. Furthermore, they also have to be backed up by independent verification on the back front, so not only does this increase the amount of work carried out but it produces an added expense, the funds of which could be redirected elsewhere.
