The digital population and housing census will begin on March 1, 24NewsHD TV channel reported on Monday.

A spokesperson for the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, Muhammad Sarwar Gondal, said a portal has already been launched so that people can submit their data themselves and don't need to face the botheration of giving data to census teams visiting door-to-door.

He said more than 4 million people have already been registered at the portal and a UTN number will be issued to them after their data is saved. He said 121,000 field enumerators have been deployed for the field operation of the census which is beginning on Wednesday.

This process will be completed by 1st April and the data will be released by 30th of April which will then be approved by the Council of Common Interests, he said, adding that this will be the evidence-based authentic data as per international standards which will be used for constituency delimitation in next general elections as well as for public policy planning.

He said this is the 7th census in the country's first-ever digital census not only of Pakistan but also of south Asia.

The spokesperson said the census teams will be monitored by geo-mapping and geo-tagging data of SUPARCO and administration officials of respective provinces, divisions, districts and tehsils where census teams are carrying out enumeration, will be given access to the dashboard of that specific area.

Elucidating this, he said Chief Secretaries of provinces will have access across the province, similarly, Commissioners will have access to Divisions, Deputy Commissioners to districts and Assistant Commissioners to tehsils.

He said to avoid any hacking or failure of the online system we have separated the process from the internet and have converted it into our own intranet server. However, to ensure the smooth running of census field operation there will also be an alternate manual system if any problem occurs in the online system in any area, he said.

Security arrangements have also been made for the census staff and police and army personnel will be deployed keeping in view the sensitivity of the area, the spokesman said, adding that special SOPs have been devised for enumeration in flood-affected areas of the country where many people are not yet settled into their homes.