Sindh accuses Centre of population undercount

KARACHI:

Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah has accused the federal government of undercounting the population of Sindh province, warning that the provincial government will have to reject the recent census if the federal government does not address its concerns.

“The actual population of Sindh is 64.4 million while the federal government has projected it to be 57.6 million which shows that 6.8 million people have not been enumerated. This is not a small difference,” Shah told a press conference on Thursday.

He said the purpose of conducting a census within a period of five years was to make accurate, foolproof, and scientific enumeration but the recent census had proved to be defective and unacceptable.

The CM said last night a meeting was held in Islamabad in which he was not invited but the chief secretary attended it. He said the meeting decided—without taking him into confidence—to close the census exercise everywhere with effect from May 15 except Punjab.

Shah said if the census was meant to be conducted on the basis of population growth rate then there was no need to carry out such an expensive exercise.

“Under the law, the census is conducted every 10 years. The last census was conducted in 2017 but it was defective and I made a hue and cry about it at the Council of Common Interest (CCI) and later the federal government announced repeating the exercise again in 2023 [prior to polls].

“Now this census of 2023 is also proving to be defective and controversial. Therefore, the federal government must rectify its shortcomings to the satisfaction of the provincial governments,” he said.

“Otherwise,” he warned, “his government would have no option but to reject it.”

During the presentation, Shah displayed slides featuring screenshots from enumerators' tablets, revealing a disconcerting pattern. One slide notably displayed the message, "Today is May 17, 2023 - the enumeration in Block [Taluka Jati, District Sujawal] can be started between March 1 and 11, 2023."

Similar anomalies were observed in various blocks, such as Daro Satah in Tando Allahyar, Muradi in Shahdadkot, and Circle-9 in Umerkot, where tablets on May 18, 2023, exhibited comparable messages.

Expressing concern, the CM highlighted that when enumerators entered data for these blocks, their entries were rejected by the central data centers of the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS).

Sharing the data from the 2017 census, Shah said Punjab had a population of 109,989, 655 with 17,107,953 listed households—each house on an average comprising 6.43 members.

In 2023, the projected population of Punjab was calculated at 123,375,402 with each house consisting of 6.24 members. In the census of 2017, the population of Sindh was 47,854,510 with 8,626,204 listed households. On an average, there were 5.55 members in each household.

The projected population of the province in 2023 is 57,665,774 with 10,256,995 listed households—each house comprising 5.62 members.

Shah said the population of Sindh is 64.4 million while the PBS puts it at 57.66 million. He said all the blocks of Karachi have not been enumerated in the census.

He said the last National Finance Commission (NFC) award was given by the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) government in 2010 and since then it has been outstanding.  “If census is held properly, it will reflect in the NFC award,” he said.

To a question, Shah said the illegal immigrants should also be counted once the nationals are enumerated so that the overall population could be ascertained.

Shah rejected the impression that it was the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) that had highlighted the shortcomings of the 2017 census. “It was me who not only raised voice through media talks and press statements but also raised the issue at the CCI,” he said.