Karachi: The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), the ruling political party in Sindh, has urged the relevant federal authorities to properly enumerate illegal immigrants in the province in the upcoming digital census campaign in the country.
Some 30,000 computer tablets will be used by over 28,700 enumerators in Sindh to digitally conduct the census from March 1 to April 1, 2023. This is going to be the first census drive in Pakistan in which conventional means of pen and paper will not be used to count the population. The results of the previous census conducted in 2017 became highly controversial as the concerned political parties said that the population of Karachi was counted way less than its actual number of residents.
Speaking at a press conference, PPP Sindh President, Senator Nisar Ahmed Khuhro, said the digital form to be used this time for enumeration of the population should have a separate field to count illegal immigrants in the province.
He said that the presentation of the Computerised National Identity Card (CNIC) should be made necessary for the bona fide citizens of Pakistan for their inclusion in the census count to ensure that illegal immigrants should be separately enumerated.
He lamented that earlier drives conducted by National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) and National Aliens Registration Authority (NARA) had failed to properly register illegal immigrants in the province.
He cited a report compiled by NARA in 2010 indicating the presence of 2.5 million illegal immigrants in Sindh.
Khuhro said that this number should have increased manifold by the year 2023.
He demanded that the federal authorities should speed up the process of registering illegal immigrants in Sindh. He said that the checking mechanism in this connection should be made more stringent at the international and inter-provincial borders in the country.
He demanded that the NADRA should also accelerate the process of the issuance of the CNICs to the bona fide citizens of Sindh.
Khuhro suggested that a bona fide citizen of the country should be duly counted at the place of his or her current residence without going into detail about the permanent address.
He told media persons that Sindh was home to a large number of people who were natives of other provinces as they should be duly counted in the upcoming census drive.
He said that proper enumeration of the population of Sindh would enable the province to get its due fiscal share in the National Finance Commission Award for spending them for the welfare of the people.
Khuhro said that previous census drives had failed to accurately count the population of Sindh.
“This time a newly born child having an age of even one hour should be counted in the census at the place of his birth,” said Khuhro.
The results of the last census held in Pakistan in 2017 showed 14.5 million as the population of Karachi. Many concerned political parties believe that the actual population of Karachi is much more than 20 million.
This time services of over 15,000 government staffers will be used to enumerate the population of Karachi alone.
