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Thursday March 28, 2024

Population Census 2017: Sindh govt rejects results, mulls APC

By Web Desk
August 29, 2017

KARACHI: The Sindh government on Monday rejected the sixth population census data, Senior lawmaker Nisar Ahmed Khuhro alleged that an incorrect population figure has been released by authorities for Sindh under a preconceived plan, adding that PPP has decided to call an all-party conference to discuss the reservations.

While showing strong reservations on national census result, Khuhro alleged that under the preconceived plan, the figure of Sindh's population was shown to be less than its actual number in order to not increase the province’s share in the National Finance Commission (NFC) award, adding that PPP is considering to call for all-party conference on the issue.

Earlier, other  opposition parties has also expressed their dissatisfaction with the preliminary results of the national census, with Muttahida Qaumi Movement Pakistan (MQM-P) and PPP leaders threatening to stage protests against what they described as "rigged" data.

While rejecting the census results, MQM-P leader Dr Farooq Sattar claimed that the census results had been "rigged". He alleged that the population figure for Karachi had been marked down. He further said that  population of Karachi cannot be less than 30 million. He called for a protest against the 'manipulated' figures.

The MQM-P leader further alleged that certain localities of Karachi were excluded from the census and said the party had already petitioned the court before the provisional results were released. 

Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf leader Senator Shibli Faraz said the census had been conducted in a shabby and non-transparent manner.

Qaumi Watan Party (QWP) chief and member of National Assembly Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao also raised his concerns on the national census data for Federally Administered Tribal Areas.

It is to mention here that provisional census data presented to the Council of Common Interest last week shows that the population of the entire province is 47.9m, with Karachi housing 14.9 million people.

The Senate Finance Committee is due to meet on Aug 29 for a detailed briefing on the preliminary results of census from the statistics division.

Federal government rejects reservations

Meanwhile, The federal government rejected the reservations raised by the Sindh's political parties and said the process of conducting the census was transparent, adding that all provinces had monitoring committees which were briefed on a regular basis while the census was being conducted. The government further said that additional time was given to address all reservations and complaints.