Census unlikely this year

ISLAMABAD: The possibility of holding of the sixth population and housing census during the current year stands totally ruled out due to non-availability of army personnel because of their engagement in the ongoing operations against terrorists. 

“Obviously, when we have to choose between conducting the census and continuing the operations uninterrupted and with full force, we have to go for the campaign against terrorism,” a senior official told The News after the Council of Common Interests (CCI) decided once again to defer the exercise.

Some 300,000 military officers and soldiers are required to oversee the census to ensure its transparency and credibility. The armed forces have expressed their inability to spare such a large number of troops due to their commitment to take the present operations to the logical conclusion.

Chief of Army Staff General Raheel Sharif confidently gave the good news to the nation sometime back that the anti-terrorist drive would conclude by the end of the current year after achieving all of its objectives.

As, according to his declaration, the armed forces would remain busy with this assignment during the ongoing year, it would not be possible to give any other job to them in this period.  To frustrate the possibility of any manipulation of the exercise by the political parties, especially ethnic and regional groups, the servicemen are associated with the process to make sure that no such illegality takes place.

Additionally, the participation of the armed forces also helps allay the apprehensions of some political forces, which, if conducted by civilian administration, always dispute the exercise.

Since on the basis of the new census delimitation of constituencies of the national and provincial assemblies, distribution of national resources under the National Finance Commission and allotment of job quota are to be decided, some influential political forces always aggressively mislead the census staff to increase population of their areas.

However, there will be no need to avail the services of the Pakistan army or any number of police and other law enforcement forces if the government abandons the nineteenth century archaic method to conduct the census.  Then, it has to opt for technology-based mechanism in this high-tech era.

In the present mode, the census is carried out manually by the enumerators, the low paid government servants, who are easily swayed into writing down in the specific pro-forma the details like number of people living in a certain house provided to them by the politically motivated inhabitants.

The census personnel don’t bother or were not allowed by powerful elements to do physical verification of the members of the families, which resultantly inflates the number, fudging the exercise.

In 2011, in pursuance of the CCI decision the Housing Listing Operation (HLO) was completed from 5th April to 5th May with the exception of some areas where it could not be carried out mainly due to weather and security issues.

Official documents showed that the results demonstrated a trend of over enumeration in the areas of Sindh and Balochistan while Punjab reflected under enumeration. This impacted on the population proportion of all the provinces as compared with 1998 census.

The Sindh’s share in population increased by 6pc and that of Balochistan went up by 2pc while share of Punjab reduced by 8pc. This was going to have serious political implications as the intense fights among provinces regarding allocation of parliament seats and distribution of resources was to be affected.

Documents said that those results were statistically analyzed. The population increase in percent and their “confidence limits” were computed on 1988 census to identify province-wise and district-wise over and under estimation.

It confirmed over enumeration in Sindh and Balochistan and under enumeration in Punjab. In view of glaring abnormalities the then Prime Minister, Yousuf Raza Gilani, had scrapped the exercise altogether.

Importantly, a similar trend had been witnessed in Sindh and Balochistan during the HLO in 1990. The areas of abnormal increase in population were rechecked through special surveys conducted by the Rangers as well as other staff. Huge discrepancies and over reporting in population were reported. As a consequence, the 1991 census was postponed to be conducted later in 1998 under the supervision of the army.

The federal government is spending some Rs16 billion on the old style census under different heads whereas less than one-fourth of this amount would be enough for the National Database & Registration Authority (Nadra) to issue 100pc Computerized National Identity Cards (CNICs) and B Forms, which will certainly remove the chances of any mischief because its data is most reliable and dependable. The particulars that the Nadra collects are almost the same that are gathered during the census. They can be treated as the new census. The coverage area of the Nadra across Pakistan is more than 95pc and the remaining regions can be dealt with by it easily in a short span of time.

Some fear that if the census was conducted on present model and methodology, tensions will be created among the federating units rather than bonding or cementing them.