Karachi (Online): Chief Minister Sindh Syed Murad Ali Shah has said that population census should be conducted in an appropriate way as it enjoys legal and political status.He stated this while presiding over the cabinet meeting which was attended by provincial ministers, Chief Secretary Sindh Rizwan Memon and Inspector General Sindh. Matters pertaining to bills about the collection of Zakat and Usher on provincial level, access to information, seminaries, situation of law and order, development projects, powers of rangers came under discussion.
Director General NADRA and Chief Commissioner gave briefing to the cabinet meeting about population census. Asif Bajwa, Chief Commissioner Statistics told during briefing that at the first phase, population census would be conducted in Karachi, Hyderabad and Ghotki and staff training in this regard would be commenced from January 24 to January 27.
NADRA officials during the meeting told that about 4.22 million CNIC have been issued in Sindh while 3.3 million people in the province are less than eighteen. DG, NADRA told the meeting that first phase of population census would be commenced in Karachi, Hyderabad and Ghotki while second phase would be started after 10 days.
“As many as 40 million form for census have been prepared with special bar codes. The machine would not read the photo copy of form”, DG added. He further said that person having no CNIC would also be included in population census and it would also be noted in the record.
“Complaint cells are being established at district and provincial level where census activities would be monitored on daily basis and its figure be released after 60 days”, he added. Manzoor Wasan gave proposal members of Bohri, Gujrati and Parsi community should be included in the population census as these were living in Karachi since pre-partition.
The CM has directed to ensure population census transparent, credible and acceptable so that outsider could not included in census.
