PPP demands digital census should fairly be conducted to accurately count Karachi’s population

Karachi: While expressing serious reservations about the newly commenced digital census in Karachi the Pakistan People’s Party has demanded that the process to count the population of the city should be conducted in a fair and transparent manner.

The demand to this effect was made at a meeting of the PPP Karachi Division with Sindh Labour and Education Minister, Saeed Ghani in the chair on Thursday.

Participants of the meeting came with the consensus view that it is the responsibility of every concerned quarter in Sindh that the population of the province is accurately counted.

The PPP Karachi Division also decided to establish a cell to receive complaints against the newly launched digital census campaign.

Ghani, who is also PPP Karachi President, said that census should be conducted in a fair and transparent manner in order to determine the population of Sindh in an accurate manner.

He said the delimitation of constituencies would also be carried out in a valid manner after a fair census drive.

He said the fiscal share of a province in the National Finance Commission award was also determined on the basis of the population count.

He recalled that the PPP had vocally raised objections against the flawed census drive of 2018 as the issue was raised at the Council of Common Interests and other relevant forums.

Ghani said that PPP should also be given the credit that a fresh census was being conducted in the country merely after five years instead of the stipulated time of 10 years.

PPP Sindh General Secretary, Senator Waqar Mehdi, said that an awareness campaign should be conducted to let the people know about the benefits of the census drive. In this regard, a special campaign should be conducted to make household women know of the benefits of the census.

PPP Karachi General Secretary, Javed Nagori, said that numerous complaints had been received in the last 24 hours that trained staff deputed for the purpose was not being utilised for conducting the census survey in the city.

He said the PPP office-bearers in the districts of Karachi should meet their respective deputy commissioner to convey these complaints.

PPP leader Najmi Alam demanded that the federal government should conduct a proper awareness campaign on print, electronic, social media, and cellular phone service about the new census drive.
The meeting decided that the PPP Shuhuda public meeting will be held on March 6 in District Malir.