Nationwide Digital Census Has Been Labeled As ‘Fake’ By Opposing Party PTI

Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf has announced to exercise protest all across major cities of Pakistan on May 1 in protest over the recently happening ‘digital census’ of Pakistan which the part has labeled as a “fake census” that aimed at reducing the population count of Karachi.

Speaking at a press conference at the party office, PTI-Karachi president Aftab Siddiqi asked the people to come out of their homes and raise their voices against the unjust and unfair population count of their city.

He said the main protest demonstration would be held in North Nazimabad while the party would also stage protests in different districts of the city.

He said it was his party which while in power decided to conduct the digital census for fixing the population of the country in general and Karachi in particular.

“For that purpose, the PTI government had allocated Rs5 billion and invested heavily to acquire modern technology for swift and accurate results. But since the process of this digital census has started, we have witnessed serious flaws in the app developed for this purpose and lack of resources which cast doubts over its efficiency.”

He said that this was being done to manipulate the real population of Karachi. 

“But let me convey this loud and clear that we will not accept any fraud this time in the name of the census.”

After the controversy over the digital census, Sindh Assembly on Monday adopted a resolution expressing serious concerns over the process.

It demanded to extend the date of self-enumeration, the period for house listing, and head counting.

Amidst the opposition protest, the Minister of Irrigation Jam Khan Shoro moved the resolution and said that the seventh housing and population census should be carried out strictly by the law, fairly and transparently to reflect the actual headcount of the people living in Pakistan.

He said there wasn’t sufficient publicity and media coverage given to the ongoing digital census.

“The people of Sindh were also kept in the dark about the outcome of the pilot census, which was conducted in July 2022,” he remarked.

During the current exercise, the authorities concerned are reluctant to give a proper response to the Sindh government about access to the data set, stated the resolution.

“The dashboard is also not operational, which casts serious doubt on the quality and quantity of enumeration,” reads the resolution.

The opposition members belonging to PTI, however, protested over the reason and questioned why it was being moved out of order in the session where the pre-budget debate was going on. But Shoro, while reading the resolution, said that after the monsoon calamity, the people of the province were still recovering from the devastating floods in which 2.1 million homes were damaged, out of which 1.4 million houses were destroyed, and the families displaced.

The resolution says that the census plan did not have any contingencies in place to count such houses or to mark and geo-tag them as required.

Similarly, no mechanism has been shown for seasonal migrations of a considerable population in the province. 

“In light of the above, this House resolves that the Government of Sindh should approach the Federal Government to extend the date of self-enumeration, the period for house listing and head counting,” it reads.

Speaking on the issue, Shoro drew the House’s attention toward other anomalies in the process, saying it was made in haste.

The officers of the district administration have also raised concerns about flaws in block formation, inconsistencies in the provided maps, and the on-ground situation, he continued.

“Individual households should be given access to their private information, which is being captured through the census exercise so that the credibility of the entire exercise is maintained,” the resolution suggests.

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