ISLAMABAD: The federal government has decided to address the reservations of the Sindh government regarding the census. The Centre assured Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah of addressing their reservations regarding the census. Sources told ARY News that a team led by the chief statistician of the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) met CM Murad Ali Shah in Karachi.

Sources added that the Sindh CM gave recommendations regarding the field operations during the census process and urged the chief statistician to address their reservations. A few days ago, Foreign Minister and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari hinted at tendering resignation if the Centre fails to fulfil its promises regarding the digital census and assistance to the flood victims.

He expressed concerns over the unfulfillment of promises by the Centre regarding the digital census and assistance to the flood affectees. Regarding the census, Bilawal said that the announcement of the digital census was not the resolution of the issues at the time of the elections. He added that the elections in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) are being held on the old census. The PPP chairman said that the Sindh government will not support this kind of census if objections of the Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah are not heard. He said that a province gets its rights on the basis of the census. Yesterday, Federal Minister for Planning Development & Special Initiatives Professor Ahsan Iqbal said all resources were being provided by the federal government to complete the census as it was a national agenda. The next general election would be based on the census, but some miscreants wanted to sabotage the process, he said while chairing a meeting of the 7th Census Monitoring Committee to review the progress of the country’s first Digital Census.

Published in The Daily National Courier, March, 09 2023

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