KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah has underscored the need for conducting the sixth census in a transparent manner so as to restore people’s confidence in the process.

The federal government, therefore, should develop a mechanism to make sure that block-wise information, to be compiled on a daily basis, was made accessible to the general public, he said in a letter addressed to Federal Finance Minister Ishaq Dar.

It said: “The exercise of undertaking the sixth population census is a gigantic task which requires concerted efforts and resources. It is extremely important to accurately count our citizens, as our fiscal and other planning is based on this data. We need to ensure that each and every citizen is counted and that there is a no exaggeration of numbers,” he stressed.

Therefore, the CM said, it was imperative that this exercise was held in an efficient and transparent manner. The chief minister in his letter further said that “this is necessary to ensure the restoration of the trust and confidence of people in the census.”

In order to conduct the sixth population census in a credible manner and according to the parameters of the law, some necessary measures must be taken, he added.

Some of the suggestions Mr Shah put forward to the federal minister included preparing a summary of the block-wise census information on the population census form ‘REN-2’ accessible to the general public and placing it on the website of the statistics division. He said the REN-2 should also be available at the office of the district census officer.

The chief minister also recommended devising of a mechanism to allow the general public to lodge their complaints before the exercise was finalised. A body can be formed at the federal/provincial level to look into the complaints.

Another recommendation made by Mr Shah is that the compulsory condition for every citizen to have his/her CNIC should be relaxed, arguing that one’s identity could be established through many other things if one does not have a CNIC for any valid reason.

Published in Dawn, March 13th, 2017