Hoping for Census in next spring
It seems that the pressure exerted by the Supreme Court for holding the much delayed Census is going to bear fruit. The CCI, we are told, is expected to approve the holding of the Census in March or April 2017 in its next meeting. As the provincial governments have done little to improve the working of the Police and strengthening people’s confidence in the force’s professionalism and political neutrality, the assistance of the army has been sought to conduct the exercise. The army had initially expressed inability to provide the required number of troops. Thanks to pressure from the Supreme Court the issue is likely to be resolved.
The Census is an essential planning tool for a government anywhere in the world. In Pakistan it helps determine the share of each province in the divisible pool of federal resources. It also helps determine the number of seats allocated to each province in the National Assembly. This makes the demographic survey a highly sensitive issue. In Sindh and Balochistan which maintain a fragile ethnic balance the Census is a hot-button issue. An attempt to carry out the exercise in 2011 by the PPP administration had to be abandoned when it became controversial
The Census has to correctly reflect the realities on the ground. In a federation the organization conducting the population count it should have due representation from all the provinces. It will take months after the demographic survey has been conducted to tabulate the data. What is required is the employment of state-of-the-art technology for enumeration and tabulation. This will eliminate the errors when data is digitised later. Aerial photography and GPS units should be used to demarcate Census geography. It would have been appropriate if 2018 elections were conducted on the basis of the latest Census. This may not be possible however as data tabulation is likely to take several months while the preparation of electoral rolls and demarcation of constituencies by the ECP too is a time consuming exercise.
It looks like NS government will delay census long enough for next general elections to take place.
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