Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Representatives of political parties, human right activists, academicians and experts on Saturday demanded that the government should announce final schedule for holding census as soon as possible.

This demand was made at a national consultation on census, organised by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. Speaking on the occasion, Afrasiab Khattak of the Awami National Party said that demographic politics had remained a major factor in Pakistani politics.

He pointed out that the country lacked neutral institutions, due to which the army was used everywhere.

Member of the National Assembly and Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM) leader Salman Mujahid Baloch said that the government should take initiatives for conducting census as early as possible. Chief Statistician Dr Asif Bajwa said that there had been a common perception that census was compulsory after every 10 years. “It is, actually, not written in the constitution,” he said, adding that government in the past used to conduct it every 10 years.

He said that distribution of funds between the federation and the provinces was solely made through the National Finance Commission (NFC), which also used census figures

The 7th NFC resulted in assignment of 82 percent weight to the population share, which had not been changed ever since. He said that was a quota of provinces in federal jobs, while the National Assembly seats were also based on population. Due to these reasons, a census has become so important in Pakistan, he said, and added that they needed a staff of more than 200,000 for the census. To a question, he said that the authorities had started trainings master trainers, and five batches have already completed their training. “They will train other staff members in the provinces.”

Dr Bajwa said that Pakistan Bureau of Statistics was ready for conducting population census and funds had also been released for the exercise.

“But due to the ongoing military operations, the Pakistan Army officials are not available, due to which the process has been delayed,” he said, adding that the bureau would conduct the census properly and modern technology would be used in the process.

The University of Gujarat’s former vice chancellor Dr Muhammad Nizamuddin said that the governments in Turkey and South Korea imposed curfew during census.

He said that in the Netherlands and Germany, the departments did not conduct census and just get data of population through birth and death registrations. Dr Pervaiz Tahir and Prof Ijaz Khan also spoke on the occasion.

The participants were of the view that census was a very basic requirement of a modern state, and for a multi-ethnic country like Pakistan, census held more importance.

They said that political, social and economic policies, planning for development, understanding the changing demographics of the country and allocation of resources by the federal and provincial governments could only be determined properly once there was clarity about the existing population and the headcount of every household in the country. The participants recommended that the political crisis that is preventing the census from being held should be decided on the highest available constitutional forum, which is the Council of Common Interest (CCI).

They said that modern technology, methodology and the experience of other countries should be utilised in improving the way census is conducted in Pakistan. They also recommended that census should be held regularly, and that the issue should not be politicised.

They said the authorities should ensure that the internally displaced persons (IDPs) were not left out of any format decided for the census.