Upcoming census: Civil society calls for govt-led awareness campaign

Speakers at dialogue urge govt to ensure a fair count

KARACHI: Former National Assembly speaker Dr Fehmida Mirza has demanded the government to initiate a public awareness campaign regarding the census at the union council level, saying a sense of deprivation will prevail among the smaller provinces if a fair enumeration exercise is not conducted.

Chairing a civil society dialogue arranged by the Concerned Citizens Voice at Marriot Hotel on Saturday, Dr Mirza said Sindh was constantly bearing the huge burden of internally displaced persons, and urged that illegal migrants should be counted separately in the upcoming census. "Census is a matter of life and death for Sindh," she said. She added that the people of Sindh and the civil society should play their due part before and during the counting process.



Continuous migration in Karachi has affected the overall ethnic set up of the province. Sindh is different from other provinces because of Karachi's size and contribution to the national economy, said town planner and researcher Arif Hasan.

Hasan said that Karachi is one of the cities in the world whose population grows rapidly, adding 800 new settlements have been built in the port city.

Comparing population figures from the 1998 census, the senior researcher said Sindh's 62% population lived in Karachi while 22% of Punjab province lived in its capital Lahore.

Sharing figures, he said the Urdu-speaking population of Karachi was 6.2% in 1941, 54.34% in 1981 and 48.52% in 1998. The Pashto-speaking population was 8.7% in 1981 and 11.42% in 1998, while the Punjabi-speaking population was just 2.8% in 1941, 13.64% in 1981 and 14 % in 1998.

He was of the view that the census is a very important matter for Sindh and it should be taken seriously.

Former chief secretary Fazalullah Qureshi said a fair and transparent census was very necessary as the people of Sindh and Balochistan believed that they were being converted into minorities.

Talking about the water crises in Karachi, Qureshi said it was due to unchecked and continuous migration from other parts of the country to Sindh's capital. He said no province, including Sindh, complained about the census of 1998 but later objections were raised. He also pointed out his concerns over the 2011 house count in Karachi.

Civil society activists, including Zulfiqar Halepoto, Javed Qazi, Dr Sono Khangharani, Shuhab Osto, Gul Hasan Kalmti and others said major residential projects in Karachi will certainly force the indigenous communities of Sindh into becoming a minority. They demanded the Sindh government to raise this issue in the Council of Common Interest (CCI) meeting on Monday (today).

The meeting also passed a resolution, demanding the census be included in part two of the Federal Legislative List as a subject that ought to be deliberated upon and implemented in the light of the decisions formulated by the CCI. It also demanded that the duration of the census should be over a period of 45 days as prescribed by United Nations guidelines.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 29^th,  2016.