Census deadline extended till May 15

ISLAMABAD: After holding consultations with different political parties mainly belonging to the treasury benches, except Jamaat-e-Islami, the government has decided to grant another extension in the deadline for accomplishing and rectifying ‘abnormal results’ of the first-ever digitised Population Census up to May 15, 2023.

The government did not invite the PTI to a briefing on the ongoing population census in order to rectify the complaints of different political parties as there were some abnormal results found in certain parts of the country.

Earlier, the extended timeframe of the ongoing population census was going to expire on April 30, 2023. Now holding of general elections may only be possible in October or November 2023 if de-limitation is required to be done on the basis of ongoing latest population census.

In the meeting held at the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) here on Friday afternoon, the representatives of political parties belonging to the ruling coalition of Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) participated in the briefing held at the PBS on Friday afternoon.

After holding hours long meeting, Minister for Planning Ahan Iqbal told journalists outside the Statistics Division building that the first-ever digital census so far counted 230 million population of the country. Now it has been decided that the population census timeframe would be extended up to May 15, 2023 in order to verify undercounting or overcounting related complaints received from different parts of the country.

He said that there were complaints that the urban centers such as Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad and other cities, the census activity could not get the pace up to the desired mark.

In order to rectify complaints that the house listing in the high rise buildings were not fully done, the government granted an extension of 15 days and now the counting of population would continue till May 15, 2023. He said the government would launch a media campaign in order to create an awareness among the masses about ensuring to get themselves counted all over the country.

He said SUPARCO and Nadra would also help to verify the census data. He said that it was the first-ever digital census, which help get data analysis on an immediate basis and wherever found abnormal trends, it would be rectified.

To a query about expected delays in holding elections owing to delimitation exercise, he said the upcoming general elections could be held in October or November and reminded that if the assemblies completed their tenures, then the elections would be held in 60 days while if the assemblies were dissolved one or two days ahead of completing the tenure, then the elections could be held in 90 days.

He said that there was very tight schedule for accomplishing the ongoing exercise of census as it was linked to NFC award, allocation of quota and delimitation of constituencies of National Assembly and Provincial Assemblies.

The Jamaat-e-Islami Ameer from Karachi, Hafiz Naeemur Rehman, told the media on the occasion that it was conceded in the meeting that the high rise buildings in Karachi were not fully counted. If there were a total of 42,000 high rise buildings all over the country, there were 32,000 located in Karachi alone. He said that so far the Karachi population was counted at 17.2 million but it stood at 30 to 35 million in reality. The JI leader said that their party would expose all those who would compromise on real counting of Karachiites for their vested petty political interests. It was a pity that the Karachi population was showing a meager growth in population while Larkana’s population growth was 25 to 27 percent. He said the government should have invited the PTI also to such important meetings.