Army yet to allocate soldiers for census

Census commissioner says decision on troops expected by next week

ISLAMABAD: With just two months to go before the sixth population census in the country gets underway, the General Headquarters (GHQ) has yet to tell the civilian authorities how many soldiers it can spare to supervise and provide security for the national exercise.

Asif Bajwa, the chief census commissioner, said that they required at least one soldier for supervision in each of the 167,000 blocks where the exercise would be carried out, in addition to troops for providing security. Hence the total requirement lies between 167,000-375,000 troops.

“The armed forces will perform supervisory and security roles and without the military’s umbrella, the population census cannot be held,” Bajwa told the media in Islamabad after a meeting of the Senate Standing Committee on Finance on Wednesday.

According to the ministry of finance, the armed forces will be responsible for maintaining law and order during field activity, collection of filled questionnaires and their transportation to Islamabad for a smooth exercise.

While the army has assured its unequivocal support for the exercise, engagements on the domestic front along with its traditional requirement at the national borders are believed to be factors delaying the decision on providing troops.

Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, on the other hand, has already ruled out the possibility of conducting the census in a phased manner.

In the last full population census held in 1998, the army had deployed around 250,000 troops in 104,000 blocks. Nearly two decades on, the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) had increased the number of blocks to 167,000 all over the country. The increased number of blocks would require an estimated 60 per cent additional workforce.

The subsequent exercise, undertaken in 2011, was conducted without army supervision and the initial results showed population growth range from negative to six per cent. It prompted the CCI to cast doubts about the credibility of the results.

Bajwa said that if army personnel accompanied census staff to every door, it would lend credence to the entire exercise.

Hence, last year the CCI decided that the census would be held under the supervision of the military in March 2016.

“The population census will begin from end of March”, Shahid Hussain Asad, the Secretary Statistics Division, told the standing committee.

The census serves as a guiding document for addressing socio-economic issues in addition to determining each province’s share in federal tax revenue. Further, the exercise would help figure out representation of provinces in the National Assembly where seats are allocated on the basis of population.

Senator Sardar Fateh Mohammad Hasni of PPP voiced reservations over the possible inclusion of Computerized National Identity Cards (CNICs) holding Afghan nationals among Pakistani citizens. He claimed that two million Afghan national have acquired CNICs which could disrupt demographics of Balochistan.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 21^st, 2016.