Sindh to reject census if 'reservations' not addressed, warns CM Murad

Citing “strong reservation” on the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics’ (PBS) recent decision to stop census activity in districts where the population growth rate is higher than a certain benchmark, Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah has warned that the census results will not be acceptable to the government and citizens of Sindh if his reservations are not addressed.

The development comes after Minister of Planning, Development and Special Initiatives Ahsan Iqbal — in a meeting held on April 30 between the Census Monitoring Committee, demographers, and political parties — announced that targeted verification and enumeration operations would be carried out in areas with abnormal population growth where gaps have already been highlighted using the digital systems architected by the PBS.

During the meeting, the planning minister emphasised that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had taken “strict notice” of the repeated extensions of field enumeration activities of the ongoing seventh population census — which is also the first digital census in the country.

Following the announcement yesterday, the Sindh CM wrote to the planning minister to express his reservations. A photograph of the letter was shared by Sindh Government Spokesperson Murtaza Wahab.

Taking to Twitter, the Sindh spokesperson wrote: “[The] PPP leadership from day one has been expressing its reservations over the transparency of census [and] how information needs to be shared with provinces.

"Chief Minister Sindh has again written to Ahsan Iqbal Sb expressing his reservations over another controversial decision of FG.”

In his letter, CM Murad referred to the decision and wrote: “We have a strong reservation on this decision as this benchmarking is totally arbitrary.”

He further added that the decision did not take into account a number of facts.

First, the Sindh CM argued that all districts grew at different paces as multiple factors alter the population growth in a particular district.

“Hence, it is wrong to judge the population growth of all the districts/talukas against a single universal benchmark. If such a benchmark was universally applicable, there would have been no need to conduct the census at all, as the population growth could have easily been calculated based on that benchmark,” CM Murad contended.

He further stated that a number of blocks in almost all the districts of Sindh had still not been fully counted.

Pointing to this, the chief minister “strongly urged” that the census activity must continue in all the districts of Sindh till “each and every household and individual is accurately counted”.

He also urged that “a certificate to that effect [be] provided by the Census District Officer as per the requirement of the census operations.”

“If the above reservation in addition to reservations conveyed through my earlier letters on the subject are not addressed, then I am constrained to say that the census results will not be acceptable to the Government and citizens of Sindh and will be outrightly rejected,” CM Murad concluded.

During the meeting yesterday, the planning minister further shared that “special efforts” to counter issues of under-coverage and low coverage should be made in urban areas of Punjab, Sindh, and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP).

He further shared that along with under-enumeration, the digital system has also identified over-counting and cases where census exercise has been manipulated or tampered with — which has resulted in abnormal trends.

It was also decided in the meeting that field operation would focus on the verification/coverage of leftover areas in Punjab (33 districts), Sindh (8 districts), KP (nine districts), Balochistan (three districts), and ICT along with verification exercise in specific areas.

To conclude the census exercise within the stipulated time, it was also decided that the PBS higher management would hold a series of meetings starting with the Islamabad chief commissioner on May 1, Punjab provincial government on May 2, the KP government on May, 3, Sindh government May 4, and Balochistan government on May, 5.