Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) Friday said that provisional results of population census will be formally notified after the Council of Common Interests (CCI) meeting on Monday (November 13). While briefing to a special committee of Senate constituted by the chairman Senate on controversy of the 6th population census, Chief Statisticians Asif Bajwa said there was no inconsistency between Army and PBS census figures.
An official said that after the approval of the CCI, law will be pushed through the Parliament to allow notification of provisional results of the census. The special committee headed by Senator Mohsin Aziz, subsequent to a briefing by the PBS and listening to the reservations of Balochistan, FATA and Sindh senators on census outcome, suggested that as a sample some blocks may be selected for verification of the exercise.
The committee suggested that on the recommendations of the Senate, 2 to 3 percent census blocks should be reopened to ascertain transparency and remove reservations of the provinces and FATA on census. Senator Nisar Khan Kakar said that Pashtun population was counted less in Balochistan and FATA while Senator Taj Haider expressed concerns over population count in Karachi and rural Sindh.
The committee also decided to verify from NADRA the population figure of 213.47 million of Karachi attributed to it after Asif Bajwa said that NADRA does not recognize the table and data being cited by Taj Haider regarding over 213 million population of Karachi in 2013.
Senator Taj Haider said he had sought information from NADRA in 2013 about the population of Karachi Division and as per details provided by it, the population of Karachi Division was 213.47 million in 2013. However, he said the population of Karachi Division was surprisingly shown less in 2017. Asif Bajwa said that five teams of UN observers were also part of the population census and they expressed complete satisfaction over the process.
Senator Usman Khan Kakar complained that Pashtun population in Balochistan was shown less and similarly the population of tribal areas was not counted because of displacement of people towards other parts of the country. Senator Taj Haider said that there are serious issues regarding transparency of the census, adding features of the census were also kept confidential from chief minister Sindh who is a member of the CCI.
Bajwa stated that on March 18, 2015, a meeting of the CCI decided to hold census in March 2016 under the supervision of armed forces along with house listing. Later, a subsequent meeting on February 29, 2016 decided that due to non-availability of requisite number of armed forces by March/April 2016, census cannot be held at the tentative data. The CCI in its meeting held on December 16, 2016 decided that census may be held from March 15, 2017 under the supervision of the armed forces.
The meeting was told that exercise was conducted in two phases and the first phase was from March 15 to April 15, 2017 while the second phase was from April 25 to May 24, 2017. He said that five days were also given for redressal of complaints after the completion of phase-II. He said that CNIC number of head of the household was recorded and verification of family tree of random/suspected CNIC was done through SMS from NADRA.
The coordination committees and vigilance teams at provincial and district levels were established and provincial technical committees on census were set up and briefed by PBS. He said that it is not possible to inflate or deflate population number as the block level data is available in scanned form.
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