AFTER many months of silence, it looks like the exercise to hold a population census by March may well be on track after all. Some serious delays have been encountered, and there was even talk back in August of scrapping the exercise altogether.

But going by the recent meeting between the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics and Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, it appears that the exercise will be moving ahead after all. One key sticking point is the availability of the army for security.

Take a look: Population census to be held in March

Given the large commitments the army already has as it continues its fight against militancy, whether or not it will be able to spare the needed manpower remains to be seen.

The census is a vital exercise, especially when it comes to policy implementation. The last census, held in 1998, yielded up some puzzling data, such as near-constant population ratios between the provinces.

This was perplexing because Sindh had seen massive inward migration in the intervening years between 1998 and the last census in the early 1980s. For this reason, its results are always taken with a grain of salt by demographers.

The underlying suggestion is that the data was manipulated to ensure that population ratios do not change very much, because that would lead to changes in the numbers of seats each province has in the legislature.

This time round, the government has specifically issued instructions to hold a ‘credible’ census, and it is extremely important that this happens.

It is also possible that the latest census, if it is truly credible, will see sharply altered population ratios between the provinces; in fact, the head count may well set into motion a complex and highly contested set of politics.

Nevertheless, it is critical to get the best picture possible of the country’s demographic make-up, and altering the data to make it less contentious is clearly not an option.

Instead, the government could follow the example of India, where a population census was held in the early 2000s, but legislation was passed beforehand to freeze the seat shares of the various states in the national legislature for some 25 years.

That way, nobody has any reason to be afraid of the truth. The politicians get what they want, and policymakers get what they desire. The government should consider advice that dampens the nature of the politics surrounding the census exercise; the latter should be allowed to yield up numbers that reflect the reality.

Published in Dawn, January 5th, 2016