PESHAWAR: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Bureau of Statistics is facing problems in carrying out its business in absence of any legal cover, which it has lost following repeal of General Statistics Act, 1975.

Officials told Dawn that the bureau of statistics was using General Statistics Act, 1975, for its data gathering activities, however, the provincial government needed to legislate for the purpose as the federal law was repealed after passage of 18th Amendment.

A senior government official said that after devolution of power, the federal government enacted General Statistics (reorganisation) Act, 2011, which didn`t cover provinces.He said that 2011 Act didn`t mention provinces and was covering only national level issues. `The provincial government needs to extend this law to the province,` he said.

The official said that currently they were facing problems in their data gathering activities as they had no legal cover to force industrialists and other businessmen to share their data with the bureau.

He said that the industries run by powerful families neither allowed the bureau staffers to enter their premises for data collection purposes nor shared it with them on their own.

The official said why the industrialists would share data with the bureau if they knew that it was powerless. `They know that we do not have any power, so they don`t cooperate with us,` he said.

A senior official of law department, however, expressed ignorance about the issue, saying it was not their job to enact law as they gave only their opinion once theauthorities concernedinitiated the process of lawmaking.

On the other hand, the bureau of statistics is also not getting enough attention of the government as it is grappling with the huge task of gathering the data of the whole province with the help of only 20 field staffers.

The bureau, which is part of the planning and development department, has about 100 personnel on its pay roll, however, this figure includes drivers, peons and data entry personnel. `We have only 20 persons for collecting data of the whole province,` the official said.

The bureau has set up camp offices in Abbottabad and Dera Ismail Khan and employs three persons for each of the camp offices. Interestingly, both the camp offices lacked computers till 2013. `We received some computers as donation from an international organisation for the camp offices in 2013,` an official said.

He said that availability of accurate data would make the job ofpolicymakers easier. The budget for transport allowance of the bureau stands at about Rs100,000.

`We issue letters to government departments and industrial units for their data or have to get it through telephone,` an official said, adding that in both the cases they either got cold response or incorrect data.

In many cases, officials said, they had to plead chamber of commerce for getting information about the industrial activities in the province.

On the other hand, Punjab and Sindh have full-fledged statistics offices in every district.

`You cannot manage what you cannot measure,` an official said.

He said that European Union (EU) had a separate office of `EuroStat`, which was responsible for statistical information to its members.

`They use information to harmonise policies and similar primacy of statistics is vital to achieve Pakistan`s vision 2025 objectives as well,` the official added.