Karachi, May 08, 2023 (PPI-OT): Member Pakistan Peoples Party Core Committee Senator Taj Haider said in a statement today that while it was always anticipated that Pakistan Bureau of Statistics will undercount Sindh, it is the huge size of the population undercount that is really shocking. As a result, the fresh Census has become much more controversial than the discarded Census 2017. Complaints of similar undercount are also coming forth from the provinces of Baluchistan and Pakhtunkhwa.
Calculation of population of Sindh is fairly simple. There are 43,838 population blocks in Sindh according to PBS records. 250 households are mandatory in each block. However, on the ground 500 to 800 households per block are common. We would still be or the very low side if we took a figure of 300 households per block in our calculation. Multiplying this figure with number of blocks gives us the total number of households in Sindh as 13,151,400.
UNICEF conducts a Multi Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) in 128 countries every 4 years jointly with Federal and Provincial Governments. Latest MICS in Sindh conducted jointly by UNICEF, Federal and Sindh Bureau of Statistics officially puts the average family size in Sindh as 6.5. Multiplying this average household size obtained officially in MICS with the number of households in Sindh gives the population of Sindh to be 85,484,100.
Sindh has therefore been undercounted by a good 30 million persons. Not having a single demographer from Sindh in the Census Advisory Group while preparing the working paper, insisting on the anti-Sindh de-Jure method of counting in the working paper, the ultra-long questionnaire with irrelevant questions, the untrained crowd of enumerators most of whom had never used a tablet, the never ending time given for selective count adjustment are some of factors which guaranteed the failure of this exercise even before its start.
For the last 17 month we have been knocking over heads against the wall of PBS and the Federal Government. In so many communications and meetings Chief Minister Sindh has been cautioning them against repeating old mistakes. In the meeting held at CM House on August 1, 2022, I directly questioned their foul intent, in the background of what they had already done. But the ‘sweet talkers’ did what they had planned on day one.
Unfortunately, some of our political parties continue to ignore the injustice with rural Sindh and easily fall prey to the divisive methods of the vested interests who have scant consideration for the constitutional rights of people living in smaller provinces. Little do these urban based parties realize that villages can survive for centuries without the cities, while the cities cannot survive even for a fortnight without villages. The urban-rural relationship has to be strengthened for our mutual survival and progress. Senator Taj Haider concluded that 35 bn rupees had gone down the drain in the name of digital Census. The digital census itself should be thrown in the dustbin of history so that this kind of mischief is not repeated in future.
For more information, contact:
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Pakistan People’s Party (PPP)
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