Controversial census

The latest digital census was originally planned to be completed within a month. It has now received five consecutive extensions. And this clearly means that neither the original census plan nor the extensions are based on proper study and planning. It seems there was no intention to correctly count the Karachi population and that authorities had planned to conclude the census as soon as they arrived at some figures which seemed ‘justifiable’ to those conducting it and were ‘acceptable’ to the Sindh government.

The real motive behind it all seems to be to continue keeping rural Sindh’s population much higher than urban Sindh’s to enable the PPP to continue its stranglehold over the province through a much higher number of assembly seats for rural Sindh. Nothing else matters. Unfortunately, other federating units also do not seem concerned about it.

SRH Hashmi

Karachi