PESHAWAR: Qaumi Watan Party has urged the government to complete the process of national census in a transparent manner and address grievances of the people in different parts of the country.

QWP chairman Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao said in a statement here on Tuesday that fresh census should be carried out in a transparent and credible manner as headcount played a key role in the development of a country.

He said that census helped to provide accurate data to the planners.

He added that it should be completed by June 2022 instead of 2023 as he believed that it was a long period.

Mr Sherpao said that government should reduce the time period specified for the completion of the headcount.

He said that the country’s population was fast increasing every year, therefore, government should enhance the number of seats in National and provincial assemblies to give equal representation to all the areas.

“Delimitation is a constitutional requirement after the census to hold elections,” he said.

He recalled that after the last census, the government simply increased the number of people required for demarking a constituency instead of creating new ones.

The QWP chief urged the authorities concerned to avoid making the mistakes committed in the past while conducting census particularly in the tribal districts.

He said that modern methods should be adopted to ensure accuracy of data as planning would be carried out on the basis of statistics collected in the census.

Mr Sherpao said that headcount helped the government to frame policies and make allocation of funds for different sectors and different areas.

“The economic growth and service delivery cannot be achieved without having accurate census figures,” he added.

Published in Dawn, April 14th, 2021