Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah has urged the federal government to include census issue in the forthcoming Council of Common Interest (CCI) meeting scheduled to be held on March 25 in Islamabad.
"This is a most important issue and must be given priority," he said.
He said this while presiding over a meeting to review agenda of CCI meeting to be held under Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on March 25, in Islamabad. The meeting was attended by Chief Secretary Siddique Memon, Principal Secretary to CM Almauddin Bullo, Additional Chief Secretary Mohammad Waseem, Secretary Inter-provincial Co-ordination (IPC) Mushtaq Shaikh, Secretary Irrigation Zaheer Hyder Shah, Secretary Finance Sohail Rajput and other concerned officers.
Secretary IPC department Mushtaq Shaikh said that the agenda of CCI issued by Ministry of Provincial Co-ordination has only one item that is a 10-year fourth Formation of National Flood Protection Plan. On this the chief minister said in the last CCI meeting the matter of census was left to discuss in the next meeting for which the prime minister had fixed the date of March 25.
"Now, it is not fair and this must be taken up on the agenda," he said and directed Secretary Mushtaq Shaikh to co-ordinate with IPC Division to include CCI in the agenda.
The chief minister said that the PPP had hosted a multi-party meeting to discuss census issue at CM House last month. All the 32 parties which attended that meeting had unanimously demanded the federal government not to postpone census. "I had presented the recommendation of all political parties which had attended the meeting. On this, the prime minister had assured him that he would talk to army chief to arrange forces for the security of census teams," he said. He added that prime minister had also assured him that the census issue would be discussed in the next meeting to be held on March 25, and surprised to note that the census was not included in the agenda of the CCI meeting.
Comments
Comments are closed.