KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah on Sunday wrote a letter to Federal Minister for Planning, Development and Special Measures Ahsan Iqbal informing him of his reservations on census activities. Officials said that the Sindh Chief Minister held a review meeting in his office on Sunday, where he noticed some irregularities in the census activities in the talukas and tehsils and thus he asked the Planning Minister to express his concerns.
Meanwhile, responding to the Chief Minister’s letter, Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal extended the census date to May 15, 2023.
Officials said that in the letter written by the Chief Minister of Sindh, it is said that “I have come to know that the review of the progress of the field operations related to the digital census exercise 2023 to be held today on April 30, 2023 under your presidency. In a meeting to take up, it has been informed that census activities will be stopped immediately in those districts and tehsils where the rate of population growth has been recorded above a certain standard.
“We have strong reservations over this decision as the benchmarking is completely arbitrary and does not take into account the following facts. Not all districts and talukas develop at the same pace as there are various factors that affect a particular district or taluka. change population growth. Therefore, it is wrong to judge the population growth of all districts and districts against a universal standard. If such a benchmark were universally applicable, there would be no need to conduct a census at all. , because population growth could easily be calculated based on this benchmark.
“Almost all the districts of Sindh have many blocks which have not yet been fully enumerated,” the letter added. Based on the above, it is strongly demanded that the census activity in all the districts of Sindh should continue till every household and person is counted accurately and in this regard by the District Census Officer. Certificate not to be provided as required. CENSUS PROCEEDINGS If, in addition to the above concerns, the concerns sent by my earlier letters on this subject are not addressed, I am constrained to say that the results of the census will not be acceptable to the Government and the citizens of Sindh. And it will be rejected outright.
Responding to the Sindh Chief Minister’s letter, Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal ordered the extension of field operations, while the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics also issued a notification stating that “the 12th meeting and recommendations of the Census Monitoring Committee. According to the Provincial Governments, the Chief Census Commissioner and the Chief Statistician have approved the extension of census fieldwork for two weeks till 15 May 2023 for verification and coverage of surviving structures and houses in the districts as per the attached list. has given “
