Members across the benches in the Sindh Assembly on Thursday sent a unanimous message with reservations to the federal government on the census outcome, saying the province population was shown 10 million less in the head count surveys.
The treasury and opposition asked the federal government to come out with answers on its census report, which triggered discount among the Sindh people and political parties. Legislators widely expressed their dissatisfactions over the census outcome during a debate on an adjournment motion of PML-F's lady lawmaker, Nusrat Sehar Abbasi.
However, Chief Minister Sindh, Syed Murad Ali Shah rejected the census outcome partially, saying "We do not reject the sixth census utterly," adding that "we do not want to let the entire census process scrap". He told the house that the federal government did not consider Sindh government's recommendations on census.
He said statistics department should come out with answers to satisfy the public on census results. "I had told the concerned departments that public will be upset if census results were not corrected," he said, adding "I had also advised that a copy of form-II should be provided to the Sindh government," he added.
The Chief Minister said that "I had also asked them to post REN form-II on the statistics department's website," adding that "our recommendations were not accepted, which created doubts". There were no legal or Constitutional barriers for not approving the recommendations, he said, adding that "I do not know whether the census results were right but people will have to be satisfied".
The mover of adjournment motion said the census left everyone wondering with its outcome, adding the census showed Sindh province population 10 million less. "Only in Karachi, about 4 million illegal immigrants are residing as a majority of them have obtained Pakistan's national identity cards," she added. She said the census results depict an increase in population of Punjab by three percent, Khyber Pukhtunkhwa and Balochistan one percent, each. "The entire Sindh rejects census results," she asserted.
MQM's Sabir Qaimkhani said Sindh's viewpoint in census process was totally ignored, adding NADRA's statistics on population were different than those of the census. He was of the view that the country's allocations were made through census reports, demanding of the federal government to remove the reservations of people of Sindh on showing less population.
MQM's Heer Ismail Soho said "the controversial census will leave the CPEC plan also controversial". She said census also drew less population in Karachi, even taken after 19 years. She also invited other political parties to support MQM's protest against the census results.
MQM's Syed Sardar Ahmed said there were about 2.5 million people in the city, whose identity cards bear two different postal addresses, were not included in the census as part of Karachi population. "The census registered these people in other provinces, which increased the assembly seats of other provinces and ours reduced," he said, terming it as a big 'injustice' to Sindh. He said federal government should not draw constituencies until errors in the census were corrected.
MQM's Abdul Rauf Siddique said "the census cut off the head instead counting them". He called the statistics department 'inefficient'. MQM's Dewan Chand Chawla the census was tempered since the head counting surveys were concluded with pencils. "The apprehensions proved true," he said. Sindh Law Minister, Zia-ul-Hasan Linjar said the federal government failed to remove the concerns of Sindh during the census. He said the Sindh government made every possible effort to remove the errors occurred in census.
PPP's Javed Nagori called the census as an equally 'important' issue like the Kala Bagh Dam. Millions of illegal migrants living in Sindh were not counted, he added. Sindh Information Minister Syed Nasir Hussain Shah said the federal government failed to take correct census even after 19 years. All political parties in Sindh are unanimous to raise objections on census. "We all reject it [census]. These reservations should be removed," he said.
The house unanimously adopted the Sindh Civil Servants Act 1973 (Amendment) Bill to increase the jobs quota for special persons from two percent to five percent, in the government's departments. The house will now meet on Friday morning at 10am.
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