With the census data from 1998 practically obsolete,
it is fair to suppose that all of these important matters today are actually
based on suppositions that have no grounding in measured reality. Without a
clean and impartial census, we don’t really know the face of the country that
we are trying to run and govern.
A new census is badly needed but the obstacles that
stand in its way are formidable and need to be acknowledged. At the heart of
the foot-dragging is the demographic make-up of Sindh that nobody is very keen
to talk about. With the massive population influx over the years
There are a total of 166,801 blocks all over the
country needing 375,000 soldiers to carry out the population counting exercise.
But the meeting was informed that this number of army personnel cannot be
spared by the army at the moment as troops are currently deployed for the
ongoing Operation.
A second reason for delaying the census was that the
process of registration of Afghan refugees had not been completed as yet.
There are estimated to be over 2.5 million Afghan
refugees living in Pakistan whose registration cards have expired or who remain
unregistered. According to sources, the registration of Afghan refugees has
been a major point of contention for provinces, especially Balochistan, which
has refused to allow the holding of census before counting Afghan nationals is
completed.
A third factor put forth during the meeting was the
unavailability of government teachers, who would be required to carry out
duties during the census.
Sources said that the meeting, led by the prime
minister, decided to postpone the census bases on these reasons.
The new date of the population census will be
announced after consultation with provinces, said the sources. The next meeting
of the CCI has now been scheduled for March 25.
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