The Senate Standing Committee on Privatization and Statistics questioning the authenticity of the latest census results in the country, recommended making the provisional results public as the delay is hampering delimitation process for the upcoming general elections. The committee met with Mohsin Aziz in the chair where Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) Senator Nasreen Jalil demanded for conducting census in Sindh, especially in Karachi, again as the current census would have severe repercussions regarding receiving lesser resources through National Finance Commission (NFC) Award.
Senator Sherry Rehman of Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) questioned the authenticity of the census, saying there was neither countercheck nor acknowledgment slip, which made the census controversial.
Senator Hari Ram said that it is not only the matter of Karachi but of whole Sindh, adding that a large number of Hindus are living in the province, who keep migrating in different seasons. The census was conducted in Thar at a time when the people had migrated in wake of drought in the area.
Mohsin Aziz said that there is a lot of hue and cry over the authenticity and the Bureau should release the provisional data. He further said the government should constitute a parliamentary committee, comprising members from the government and opposition, to help Statistics Bureau in addressing reservations arising out of the census.
Replying to parliamentarians' questions, PBS Chief Census Commissioner Asif Bajwa said that Council of Common Interests (CCI) has given the approval to finalize the census results by May 2018; however they are expecting to complete the process by April. He further said that Pakistan Army personnel were carrying form 786 and they tabulated the data. The PBS and army data is matching and there are no discrepancies. Bajwa further said that there is no issue in making the provisional data public but it requires permission from concerned quarters. About the acknowledgement slip, the PBS official said that it was not part of the plan designed by the technical committee. Bajwa further said that despite repeated requests, provincial technical committees are yet to submit their report.
Bajwa said that the boundaries of Lahore city were extended in 2015 to the whole district, due to which the data is reflecting massive increase of 116 percent in its population with growth rate of 4.14 percent, but the Karachi boundaries were not extended and its population registered 59.66 percent increase with 2.49 percent growth rate. Some people are saying that 15 million people of Karachi were missed in the census and if this number is added, it will show that Karachi population growth rate was 6.53 percent. He further claimed that no area has been left in the census as there was neither any no-go area nor any boycott witnessed anywhere.
After completion of census operation, the information about the total number of households, number of males, females, transgender community and total population was recorded on REN-2 Form which was retrieved to PBS headquarters in a separate envelope under the supervision of armed forces. The information recorded in these forms was processed manually and the provisional results were compiled.
These results pertain to national/provincial/divisional, admin district and Tehsil levels with urban/rural breakdown. However, these results are provisional and subject to variation once the ICR Form-2 are completely processed. The salient features of the provisional results are compound annual growth rate over the year 1998, percentage population increase over the past 19 years, provincial share on national population, urban/rural population trends, sex ratio, and province-wise distribution of households and population of ten major cities of the country.
The committee was informed in writing that chief minister KPK showed his reservations on the census process and requested to provide district level data of census-2017 before releasing of provisional summary results to make the census transparent, reliable, free of controversies and a fruitful exercise. In response to his request, the finance minister informed him that provision of district level data would not be possible as census data is not processed at the district level. Also, under the law, data cannot be shared unless it is anonymised and approved by the federal government.
Similarly, the chief minister Sindh requested to provide information about summary of the block-wise census information from REN-2 Form, formation of a body at federal/provincial level for redressal of complaints of general public and compulsory condition of having a CNIC to be counted needs to be relaxed. In response to the above, the finance minister informed that the provision of census district level summary on the basis of REN-2 Form is not possible. Co-ordination and vigilance committees were formed at census district level, which were responsible for monitoring the census operation to ensure credibility. It was further informed that provision of CNIC is not mandatory.
The minister for finance had further requested to set up a technical committee at provincial level to address apprehensions of the provinces.
Accordingly, in order to resolve the issues/complaints of the provincial governments and to oversee/monitor the process of editing/coding, scanning, and data processing at PBS headquarters, Islamabad, the PBS requested the provincial governments to form their technical committees in this regard.
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