ISLAMABAD: Federal cabinet has partially approved recommendations regarding conducting seventh census.
As per sources, the federal cabinet meeting held in Islamabad with Prime Minister Imran Khan in chair deliberated on nine-point agenda including recommendations for the new census.
The meeting partially approved proposals regarding the country s seventh census. The cabinet also approved the deployment of troops for the seventh census.
Sources said that during the meeting, the MQM’s Law Minister Farogh Naseem and Minister for Information Technology Aminul Haq opposed some of the proposals included in the census procedure.
The information technology minister said that the defecto procedure should be adopted for the census, adding that the person residing in the area should be counted in the population of the area during the census.
On the other hand, Federal Planning and Development Minister Asad Umar said that the federal cabinet had given approval for a fresh census that will be conducted through the use of “modern technology” in line with the global best practices.
Cabinet gave the approval for holding a census using modern digital technology and consistent with global best practices. Proposal for approval of CCI for holding the census will be moved soon. This will be first time in Pak history census will be held with a gap of only 5 years
— Asad Umar (@Asad_Umar) October 5, 2021
It should be noted that the last census in the country was conducted in 2017. The political leadership of Sindh had expressed reservations over the results of the census.
The political leadership was of the view that the population of urban areas of the province including Sindh in general and Karachi in particular has been underestimated in the census.
According to the Bureau of Statistics the population of Pakistan is 207, 684,626 with an annual growth rate of 2.40%.
The total population consists of 106,018,220 males and 101,344,632 females while the population of transpersons is 321,774. The rural population is 132,013,789 and the urban population is 75,670,837. Karachi remained the most populated city of Pakistan, with a total population of 10,624,894, according to the report.
The total population of Punjab stands at 109.99 million, Sindh 47.85 million, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa 30.51 million, Balochistan 12.34 million, Islamabad 2 million and erstwhile Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) 4.99 million.
