Chief Minister Murad Shah opposes decision; writes letter to Fed P&D Minister asking for continuing census activity in all the districts of the province; warns of rejecting census results if Sindh’s reservations remained unaddressed
Sindh Courier
Karachi, Sindh
The Federal government, in a meeting held on Sunday April 30, 2023 to review the ongoing Digital Census progress, has decided discontinuing census activity in certain talukas of Sindh.
The federal authorities decided to immediately halt the activity in Talukas where population has been recorded above the benchmark.
Chief Minister Murad Shah has opposed the decision and immediately wrote a letter to Federal Minister for Planning & Development Ahsan Iqbal asking for continuing census activity in all the districts of the province, and also warned of rejecting census results if Sindh’s reservations remained unaddressed.
Addressing the Federal P&D Minister, Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah stated in his letter that “It has come to his knowledge that in a meeting to review the progress of the field operations related to ongoing digital census exercise 2023 held today i.e. April 30, 2023, under your chairmanship, it has been conveyed that the census activity will immediately be closed in those Tehsils/Talukas where population growth rate higher than a certain benchmark has been recorded.”
“We has strong reservation on this decision as this benchmarking is totally arbitrary and does not take into account the facts, which are as follows:
- All Districts/Talukas do not grow at same pace as there are multiple factors which alter the population growth in a particular district or taluka. Hence, it is wrong to judge the population growth of all districts/talukas against a single universal benchmark. If such a benchmark was universally applied, there would have been no need to conduct the census at all, as the population growth could have easily been calculated on that benchmark.
- There are many blocks in almost all the districts of Sindh, which have still not been fully counted.
“Based on above, it is strongly urged that the census activity shall continue in all the districts of Sindh till each and every household and individual is accurately counted and certificate to that effect is provided by the Census District Officer as per requirement of the Census Operation,” Chief Minister said in his letter.
Murad Ali Shah stated further that ‘If the above reservation In addition to reservations conveyed through my earlier letters on the subject, are not addressed, then I am constrained to say that the census results will not be acceptable to the government and citizens of Sindh and will be outrightly rejected.”
_________________
