Govt turns down proposal to hold census in phases

Governing Council of PBS discusses crucial challenges posed by the exercise

ISLAMABAD:

The federal government on Saturday turned down a proposal to hold the upcoming population census in phases while sticking to its original plan to complete the process within a week, as it struggles to exclude Pakistani-card holding Afghan nationals.

The proposal to hold the sixth Population and Housing Census in phases was floated in a meeting of the Governing Council of the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS), according to officials. However, the chairperson of the council, Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, shot down the proposal.



The mover of the proposal was of the view that the census in the country’s sensitive areas should be held separately. The demographers opposed the move, arguing that the census cannot be done in phases.

The population census has become a politically sensitive issue, as on its basis seats of the National Assembly are decided. Population carries the highest weight of 82% in allocation of financial resources from the federation to the provinces. After population, poverty and backwardness carries the second highest weight of 10.3%.

Pakistan is conducting the census after a gap of 17 years. It held the last census in 1998. An attempt made by the Pakistan Peoples Party government in 2011 remained unsuccessful after glaring irregularities surfaced in house listing in Karachi and Balochistan.

It was the prime responsibility of PBS to conduct credible census, an official handout quoted Dar as saying. He directed that utmost care should be taken to complete this task in a transparent manner so that the data is credible. Such data, he said, can then form the basis for future planning.

The meeting also discussed the issue of weeding out Afghan nationals from the national exercise who have already acquired Computerised National Identity Cards (CNICs) through illegal means. The officials said the Balochistan government complained that the counting of CNIC-holding Afghan nationals as Balochistan citizens would disturb the demographic landscape of the province.

The Baloch feared that this will shift the balance in favour of the Pakthuns as hundreds of thousands Afghan nationals have acquired Pakistani nationality.



However, PBS officials informed Dar that the bureau does not have a solution to this problem, as it will count every person who holds the national identity card. To address a similar issue in Punjab, the provincial government has undertaken an exercise, called geo-tagging, to identify those Afghans who have obtained Pakistani CNICs.

It was suggested the Balochistan government could undertake the geo-tagging exercise on its own. The Balochistan government has also not yet appointed its provincial census commissioner as at one-stage it threatened to boycott the census exercise due to the Afghan national issue.

Dar also advised the PBS to take the services of the National Database and Registration Authority and intelligence agencies to identify Afghan nationals, said the officials.

During the meeting, the chief statistician of PBS, Asif Bajwa, gave a detailed presentation on the preparations for the forthcoming census. He said that as per decision of the Governing Council, the PBS adjusted the target dates for preparation of census reports by December 2017. He said the PBS has initiated all preparations and held meetings with provincial authorities to brief them about their responsibility in making the census successful and transparent.

The exercise will begin from March this year.

It was decided that qualified and highly reputed statisticians would be co-opted as members of the technical committee to provide their professional input on conduct of census. The technical committee would meet at least once in a week.

The government has decided that 207,500 people would be engaged to reach more than 165,000 census blocks. The workforce requirement is 60% higher than the 1998 census as the government has increased the number of blocks.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 3^rd, 2016.