The most recent national census in Pakistan was the 7th Population and Housing Census, which took place from March to May 2023. While the Constitution of Pakistan mandates that a census be held every 10 years, the timing of the next census has not yet been officially announced, as the previous one was only recently completed. Historically, our censuses have often faced delays due to political and administrative factors. The first all-India Census was conducted in 1872, which at the time was the world’s largest administrative exercise. On the other hand, censuses in neighbouring India have been conducted routinely, without any gap, with the next one now planned in 2027, covering almost 1.40 billion people or 33 crore households by canvassing them for house-listing, housing census, and population enumeration. It is the most comprehensive source of ground-level data available in India, covering demography, economic activity, literacy and education, housing conditions, urbanisation, fertility and mortality, caste and tribe, language, religion, and migration. From welfare schemes to infrastructure planning, from administrative decisions to academic research, census data informs how a country understands itself, providing the single most primary dataset........

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