Minister for Minister for Planning Development & Special Initiatives Professor Ahsan Iqbal has said that the government will take all the provinces on board pertaining to the ongoing digital census in the country. He chaired a 7th Census Monitoring committee meeting to review progress over the country’s first Digital Census and decided to address the concerns of Sindh province.
The minister said the government believes in taking all decisions by consensus. He said the digital census will have an impact on the future of Pakistan and he cannot afford any kind of controversy and will not compromise on its transparency. Ahsan Iqbal directed the Chief Pakistan Bureau of Statistics to meet Sindh Chief Minister along with his technical team to address the concerns of Sindh.
The planning minister said the government would take all the provinces on board in connection with the census and the concerns of Sindh would be removed immediately. The Sindh CM appreciated the efforts of the planning minister to address his province’s reservations. The PBS chief statistician briefed the participants of the meeting on the activities related to the census.
It was decided that the Census Monitoring Committee would meet every week for better coordination and to resolve all the problems being faced immediately. Planning Minister Iqbal maintained that the next general elections would be based on the new census, but some miscreants wanted to sabotage the process. “It is our responsibility to focus on this exercise by ensuring its transparency and accuracy,” he continued.
The minister further elaborated that the digital census would have an impact on the future of Pakistan. “I cannot afford any kind of controversy and won’t compromise on its transparency,” he added. The minister said all resources were being provided by the federal government to complete the process as it was a matter of national agenda. He had already given a deadline of April 30, 2023, to complete the census as after the exercise, the ECP would take four months for the delimitation of fresh constituencies.
