Census 2023: Summary moved to convene CCI meeting

ISLAMABAD: The Ministry of Planning and Development has moved a summary for convening the Council of Common Interests (CCI) meeting to grant approval on the first-ever digital Population and Housing Census held in 2023.

The Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) has accomplished the exercise of holding the latest Population Census and compiled the results which have now been forwarded to the CCI for seeking guidance/approval from the constitutional forum. “The summary forwarded by the Planning Ministry has informed the CCI Secretariat/Cabinet Division that the census exercise has been accomplished along with post-enumeration survey which is ready for consideration of the competent forum for taking the final decision” top official sources confirmed while talking to The News here on Wednesday.

This decision of the government to prepare and then dispatch of official summary clearly demonstrates that the government is all set to convene the CCI meeting before the completion of its tenure. Earlier, it was under discussion to hold the CCI meeting on August 2, 2023, but it could not be done. However, now the summary has been forwarded to the CCI for granting approval on the accomplished census exercise which would have far-reaching complications in the political arena especially in the aftermath of the recent statement of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif for holding the next general elections under the newly conducted census.

There might be three possibilities facing the census results at the CCI four, Either it will scrap the results in the wake of serious flaws likely to be identified by all stakeholders during the meeting or approve the census results. In the latter case, there will be consequences of delaying the next elections in the wake of the delimitation exercise. The third possibility will be the formation of a committee to resolve lingering disputes and find out an amicable solution acceptable to all stakeholders.

The question also arises of how the government will get approval for constitutional amendments which require a two-thirds majority. If any plan exists for delaying the general elections at any level then the digital census results may be approved. In that case, the ECP requires at least four to six months for undertaking the delimitation exercise.

The latest census results show that the country’s population hovers around less than 250 million but it has crossed 240 million population. The Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) has accomplished the task of conducting post enumeration survey for verifying the first-ever results of the digital population census in selected blocks of 48 districts. The PBS selected 2,500 blocks in the selected districts of the country to recheck the counting population to lend credibility to this exercise.

Some results of the conducted latest population census were quite unique and interesting but hard to digest even to demographers, especially in Balochistan which has a high density of Baloch nationals. There are complaints of overcounting in rural parts of Sindh while in urban parts of the province especially in Karachi there were rampant complaints over less counting. The dates of a stipulated timeframe of the census were extended and finally, the post-enumeration survey was also conducted but its results could not yet be ascertained so the chances of triggering controversy still persisted. Talking to The News on Wednesday night, Minister for Planning Ahsan Iqbal said that the summary was moved to CCI for taking a decision on whether to hold the elections on the basis of the new census or ignored it and hold the elections on the basis of the last census. A paradoxical situation has emerged where the CCI would have to take a final decision. He said that the Parliament had approved a constitutional amendment to approve the delimitation on the basis of provisional census results in 2017. Now the census has been accomplished and if someone approached the Supreme Court then it might lead to a difficult situation. The SC, he reminded had given directions for holding the new census for the next elections.