ISLAMABAD: The Council of Common Interests (CCI) will hold a meeting on August 5 to approve the 2023 digital census to be held earlier this year, sources told JEE News.
According to sources, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has given the green signal to the Ministry of Planning and Development’s proposal to convene a CCI meeting to approve the first digital population and housing census to be held in 2023.
The Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) has successfully conducted the latest census and compiled the results, which are now being submitted to the CCI for constitutional approval.
If Census 2023 is approved, it will delay the next elections by at least three to four months.
Earlier, it was discussed to hold the CCI meeting on August 2, but it could not happen. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said a few days ago that the upcoming elections will be held on the basis of census.
According to a report in JEE News, written by Mehtab Haider and published on Thursday, there could be three possibilities for the CCI. Either it will nullify the results in view of serious flaws pointed out by all the stakeholders during the meeting or approve the results of the census.
In the latter case, the delimitation exercise conducted by the Election Commission of Pakistan will result in delaying the next elections. A third possibility would be to form a committee to resolve protracted disputes and find a solution acceptable to all stakeholders.
It also raises the question of how the government will get approval for constitutional amendments that require a two-thirds majority, the report added, adding that if there is any plan to delay general elections at any level, the digital census will Results may be approved. In this case, the ECP needs at least four to six months to start the demarcation exercise.
The latest census results show that the country’s population is less than 250 million but has crossed 240 million. The Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) has completed the post-census survey to verify the first results of the digital population census in selected blocks of 48 districts.
PBS selected 2,500 blocks in selected districts of the country to re-evaluate the census population to make the exercise credible.
According to the report, some of the findings of the latest population census were quite unique and interesting but difficult for demographers to digest, especially in Balochistan where the density of Baloch citizens is high.
There are complaints of over-counting in rural areas of Sindh, while complaints of under-counting have been reported in urban areas of the province, especially in Karachi. The report states that “the dates for a fixed census were extended and finally, the post-census survey was also conducted but the results are not yet known, so the possibility of conflict still remains. remain intact.”
