Why has Pakistan not had a census in 18
years?
If asked about the number of children in their families, how will the
census tabulators know what to record?
Now that the country will have a census after 18 years, doubts are
already being expressed about the accuracy of the data that will be collected.
Farooq Sattar, MNA and former Karachi mayor, says that
the census should not be influenced by the landlords
as the census commission is very close to the landlords and there should be no
injustice with the people living in Sindh’s urban areas.
Mir Hasil Bizenjo, the
chief of the National Party and the incumbent federal minister
for ports and shipping, has said that the census should be put off in Balochistan and
Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) till the four million Afghan refugees return
to Afghanistan and all the Baloch who have gone into exile return, else the
Baloch population will be under-reported.
There is some merit in these
arguments.
During the floods in the rural areas of Punjab and Sindh, social workers
noted that many women had more than 10 children (in some cases even more than
15), but many men and women did not know how many children they had. So, if
asked about the number of children in their families, how will the census
tabulators know what to record?
Being
locals, they will be tempted to exaggerate the figures, knowing that recording
more people in their districts will mean more funds for
development in their areas. This will, of course, render the entire exercise
meaningless. As a result, urban areas will not get their due share of the
development budget that they would otherwise be entitled to.
“How
many children do you have, Allah Ditta?”
“15, 16
or 17, I’m not sure.”
“Okay,
17, all boys?”
“No,
maybe 10 boys and seven girls.”
So, the
enumerator will record that Allah Ditta has 10 male and seven female children.
Assuming that out of 200 million Pakistanis, the Allah Dittas number at least
50 million, the data will be skewed in favour of rural areas and will not be
accurate. This has probably been happening in all past censuses.
Urban dwellers, on the other hand, are all registered with the
National Database & Registration Authority (NADRA). They have to report the births of their
children immediately to the authorities, so they cannot claim to have 15 or 17
children.
But
holding a census (even a flawed one) is vital for the country. The
government needs the census data to plan for development, allocation of
resources, and formulation of policies to cater to the different needs of its
citizens. The census reveals the exact number of seats each city can have in
the national and provincial assemblies.
The census will determine, for instance, if the number of people
in rural areas has increased or decreased (as a percentage of the population).
This is necessary specially for Karachi, where it is widely felt that more than half of Sindh’s population lives in the city, whereas for
planning and development purposes, it is taken as having less than a third of
the province’s population.
The census will also determine the percentage of minorities in the country. I have often heard some
people say that the number of non-Muslims in the country is increasing rapidly
and Muslims will soon be outnumbered by others.
The 2011 census in India, for example, laid to rest the fear among Hindutva extremists that the Muslim
population in India is exploding at an exponential rate. At the rate the Indian
Muslim population is growing, Muslims will always be around 15% of the total
Indian population for at least another 100 years.
But in spite of all the doubts, I feel that the government
should go ahead and hold the census in March this year. Despite inaccuracies, it will at least
give us a fairly good idea of the state of the country and the direction in
which it is headed.
Shakir Lakhani
Engineer,
former visiting lecturer at NED Engineering College, industrialist, associated
with petroleum/chemical industries for many years. Loves writing, and (in the
opinion of most of those who know him), mentally unbalanced. He tweets
@shakirlakhani (twitter.com/shakirlakhani)
http://blogs.tribune.com.pk/story/44820/why-has-pakistan-not-had-a-census-in-18-years/
Post a Comment