ISLAMABAD: A confused Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) on Wednesday called for verification of computerised national identity cards (CNICs) during the national population census, besides suggesting other measures to make the process transparent after commencement of the gigantic exercise on the same day.

The proposals were floated by Saleem Mandviwalla of the PPP while speaking on a calling attention notice on ‘the lack of transparency in the census exercise’.

Law Minister Zahid Hamid asked the PPP lawmaker to pin-point the area where he saw lack of transparency in the census. He said raising questions over perceived lack of transparency at this stage when the exercise had just commenced was unfortunate.

He said the Council of Common Interests had hammered out a detailed methodology to ensure transparency in the headcount.

Minister says in Senate raising questions over perceived lack of transparency at this stage is unfortunate

The minister said the services of the army had been acquired to make the process credible. Elaborating, he said each enumerator would be accompanied by a soldier. While the enumerator would fill out the form, the soldier accompanying him would separately write the total number of members of a family. The two documents would be tallied and verification would be required in case of a difference.

In case of doubt, Mr Hamid said, verification from the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) would be sought through SMS.

Earlier, Mr Mandviwalla, who is also chairman of the Senate’s standing committee on finance and statistics, presented a report in the session on a census-related issue raised by a member in the house exactly a month ago.

The report recommends that the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) should ensure accurate reflection of internally displaced persons belonging to the Federally Administered Tribal Areas so that a correct picture of their native areas emerges in the census.

It asks the PBS to devise a transparent mechanism to ensure that immigrants and overseas Pakistanis are separately reflected and the census exercise is held in a fair and transparent manner.

The report asks the PBS to ensure that an SMS service is provided by Nadra for verification of CNICs. It urges Nadra to take immediate steps to resolve the issue of blocked CNICs “prior to the upcoming population census”.

It says that reservations of political parties of Balochistan should be addressed “before conducting census” by devising a proper mechanism for counting around 40 per cent people of the province who have shifted to different parts of the country due to deteriorating law and order situation in the province. It says refugees should be excluded from the population of Pakistan.

Mr Mandviwalla asked the house to adopt the report, but the law minister said the members should be given time to go through the report before its adoption. The chair decided to bring the report on the agenda on Friday (tomorrow).

Racial profiling

An adjournment motion to discuss alleged racial profiling of Pakhtun people in parts of the country was admitted for discussion by presiding officer Senator Ahmad Hassan after Sherry Rehman of the PPP threatened a walkout if it was not admitted.

She said ethnic hatred was being fomented through the racial profiling which might provide fertile ground to the militant Islamic State group to spread its ideology and recruit members in the country, particularly Punjab.

Minister of State for Interior Baleeghur Rahman pointed out that the issue had already been discussed in an in-camera session of the Senate. He said an adjournment motion had to be urgent in nature.

“However it is the decision of the chair. We have responded to it and will respond again,” he remarked.

The house was informed during the question hour that the ratio of literate women was the highest in Punjab. According to the statistics shared with the house, 55 per cent women in Punjab and 49pc in Sindh were literate. The ratio is as low as 25pc and 35pc in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, respectively.

The literacy rate among men is 71pc in Punjab and KP, 70pc in Sindh and 61pc in Balochistan.

The house will meet again on Thursday (today) at 3pm.

Published in Dawn, March 16th, 2017