PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has feared that the province’s population will decline by more than seven million if its residents, who have been out of the country for more than six months for work, are not counted in the ongoing national census.

It insisted most of such people usually visited the country every two years and therefore, keeping them out of the census exercise would have adverse implications for the province.

The fear was conveyed by KP senior minister for local government Inayatullah Khan to provincial census commissioner Mumtaz Ali Khan during a meeting on Friday, said a statement issued here.

The minister said the federal government should include the details of overseas Pakistanis and their family members in the census to get the correct demographic statistics of their native districts and province.

He said the counting of overseas Pakistanis would effectively address the people’s doubts about the census by ensuring transparency, fairness and credibility of the exercise.

Minister says population will fall if residents working abroad not counted

The minister said not only would the census data provide a basis for the allocation of national and provincial assembly seats but national and provincial resources would also be distributed on the basis of those statistics.

He said the population had much significance in the distribution of resources and therefore, the non-inclusion of overseas Pakistanis in the census would have serious implications for the poor and smaller provinces and districts.

The minister said millions of KP residents lived abroad, especially in Middle East, for work and therefore, keeping them out of the enumeration in native districts would significantly decrease the province’s population.

He asked the relevant quarters of the province to prepare a comprehensive report on the matter for the consideration of the chief minister.

The census commissioner assured the minister of corrective steps to address the province’s grievances on census and said he would take them up with the higher authorities as well.

Mr. Inayatullah later told Dawn that a large number of KP residents, especially from Malakand division, lived in the Middle East for work.

He said majority of such people usually visited Pakistan every two years and therefore, their exclusion from the census would harm the province’s interests.

The minister said it was possible to change the policy at the current stage of census to count such people.

He said he and chief secretary would discuss the matter and that he had taken it up with party leadership, too, to highlight it at all available forums.

Published in Dawn, April 8th, 2017