PHOTO: AFP
The top government officer responsible for overseeing the country’s sixth population census admitted for the first time on Wednesday that the national headcount could be delayed because of ‘operational difficulties’.
“Unless the military can provide the required number of troops, the census will have to be delayed for some time,” Chief Census Commissioner Asif Bajwa told the Senate Standing Committee on Finance and Statistics. He said the best time to conduct the exercise — supposed to begin next month — is either April-May or September-October of any year.
Bajwa said the government was still negotiating the provision of adequate troops with the military brass, which has said it can only spare 100,000 soldiers against a requirement of 375,000. “But the situation is such that there are no troops for even polio immunisation drives.”
Still, the census commissioner added, the Council of Common Interests would take a final decision on whether to postpone the census on Monday. “Till then, we are keeping our fingers crossed.”
Bajwa again ruled out the possibility of conducting the census in phases, saying it will distort the results due to the dynamic nature of population. “At best, the exercise must be completed in a month and a half,” he said.
The federal government also for the first time on Wednesday confessed that the governing council of the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) lacked equal provincial representation.
“Finance Minister Ishaq Dar appointed council members from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan in January,” Statistics Division Secretary Shahid Hussain Asad told the committee.
The Sindh government had complained that the federal body does not have equal provincial representation and that the chief census commissioner was a ‘biased’ bureaucrat.
Meanwhile, National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) Director General Muzaffar Ali informed the panel that his department had so far blocked around 140,000 illegally obtained Computerised National Identity Cards (CNICs), 75,000 of which were from Balochistan. He also said the voting lists used in the 2013 general elections showed that the Baloch ethnic majority existed at the level recorded in the 1998 census.
Baloch nationalist politicians have been demanding the postponement of the census, fearing that hundreds of thousands Afghan refugees who have been granted CNICs would undermine their majority in Balochistan.
Muzaffar said NADRA could separate aliens registered as Pakistanis if PBS shares the raw census data with it before compiling results. Bajwa, however, said the law prohibits him from handing over the data to any other body.
Govt optimistic about census
While the chief census commissioner highlighted the challenges in carrying out the headcount as scheduled, the inter-provincial coordination (IPC) minister on Wednesday claimed the government had already made arrangements to conduct the exercise.
Despite the reservations voiced by Bajwa before the Senate panel, the minister also endorsed the suggestion of Leader of Opposition Khursheed Shah to hold the census in phases.
During proceedings of the National Assembly on Wednesday, Shah asked the government to inform the house on its plans regarding the census. In response, IPC Minister Riaz Hussain said the matter was on the agenda of the CCI meeting on Monday.
According to Riaz, his ministry had held meetings with the defence and interior secretaries on troop requirements for the census and had reviewed the methodology to be used in troubled areas with the chief minister of Balochistan.
He added that the training of the census staff, availability of vehicles and appointment of census commissioners had been completed.
Published in The Express Tribune, February 25th, 2016.
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