ASPERSIONS are always cast in our country whether these are elections or the census results. The reason is the petty vested interests of our political parties which make big slogans to work for the welfare of the people but facts unfortunately are quite the contrary.
The sixth national census was conducted after a gap of twenty years back in 2017 but it took the government three years to approve its results as there was mounting pressure from some parties which wanted to protect their electoral representation. As the Federal Cabinet gave its nod to the census results on Tuesday, it was the MQM, the main ally of the PTI, which rejected the census warning it will not accept delimitations of constituencies under it. The motive behind it is very clear as the party does not want to lose ground in Karachi. The final nod to the document is yet to be given by the Council of Common Interests (CCI) and how many weeks and months are wasted in it is yet to be seen. What is the use of census when its data and statistics are not immediately available for future planning in the areas of education, health, transportation, infrastructure and so on. Based on figures from population census, economic growth planning as well as development of the country is carried out properly and effectively. In addition to the proper distribution of resources across the country/provinces, the political representations in the national and provincial assemblies are also allocated as per the population. In the given circumstances, the proposal of the federal cabinet to conduct the exercise every three years is not practical and will only result in perennial controversies. The focus rather must be given to make the whole exercise transparent leaving no room for anybody to raise any questions on it. For this, the latest technology with the cooperation of NADRA should be employed. The political parties should also start seeing beyond the lens of their petty interests. Responsibility also rests with other segments of the society including the common man to put up their pressure for the early release of census results as after all it is their tax payers money that is used to conduct the mammoth exercise.
