General elections will be held in October 2023 under the seventh digital census, Ahsan Iqbal

Islamabad. December 6 (APP): Federal Minister for Planning, Development and Special Measures Professor Ahsan Iqbal has said that the next general elections will be held in October 2023 under the seventh digital census. He expressed these views on Tuesday at the inauguration ceremony of the training of master trainers for the seventh digital census. Since the government came to power in April this year, the process of the seventh digital census has been accelerated and all the Stakeholders including Ministry of IT, National Telecom Corporation NTC, NADRA, Pakistan Bureau of Statistics are working under the umbrella of planning. On the occasion, the Federal Minister said that the Parliament will complete its term in August 2023 and The next general elections will be held on the basis of this census. He said that Balochistan and Sindh are the most affected provinces from the recent floods and it will take another 6 to 8 months for both the provinces to recover. The federal minister said that the new elections will be held only after the new census is completed in April or May. It may be in October and then the Election Commission of Pakistan will need four more months for new delimitation based on the new data. He said that the government has spent 34 billion rupees for the digital census and good. To ensure governance, the government must have accurate data about the population and its distribution. Giving details about the last census, the federal minister said that the population increased in the last census (1981-1998). The rate was 2.6 percent and in (1998-2017), the population growth rate was 2.4 percent. The federal minister said that it is the need of the hour to conduct a fresh census considering the rate of population of Pakistan which has increased rapidly. Is. Prof. Ahsan Iqbal said that if the pace of development continues, Pakistan's population will reach 340 million by 2050. The federal minister also appreciated the efforts of the statistical office for speeding up the process of digital census despite the limited time. indicated that the digital census will be completed in April 2023.\932