ISLAMABAD - The federal government has refused to provide details of the sixth population census to the Sindh government, which had expressed serious reservations over the provisional results of the national exercise.
“The Sindh government had asked the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) to provide the record of blocks and form-2 used in the population census. However, we cannot provide the record as per the laws,” said Asif Bajwa, the top consultant of the PBS on census 2017, while addressing a press conference on Monday.
The technical team could only be given a briefing on the process, he added.
“The government would have to amend the laws through parliament for providing censuses results to the provinces,” he said and added that the existing law did not allow the PSB to share this information.
On August 25, the Council of Common Interests (CCI) approved the provisional census results, which showed Pakistan’s population touching the 207.8 million threshold with an increase of 57 percent since 1998. The annual growth of population has been recorded at 2.4 percent. The census was conducted in two phases from March 15 to May 24 after a gap of 19 years.
The provisional results of the sixth population and housing census-2017 showed the total population of Punjab was 110.012 million – 54.046 million female and 55.958 million male. The total number of people in Sindh was reported at 47.88 million with 11.05 million female and 11.92 million male. The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa has the total population of 30.523 million – 15.054 million female and 15.467 million male. Balochistan total population was reported at 12.344 million – 5.86 million female and 6.83 million male.
However, the Pakistan Peoples’ Party-led Sindh government and other political parties had rejected the provisional results of the population census. Senior PPP leader Nisar Khuhro had termed the results a conspiracy against the province by the federal government.
The provisional government also alleged that Sindh’s population had been shown far less than its actual number aimed at not increasing the province’s share in the National Finance Commission award.
The Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan—the opposition party in Centre and the Sindh assembly—has also rejected the provisional results of the census. The MQM-P has alleged that certain localities of Karachi were excluded from the exercise.