HYDERABAD: Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah has said that the results of the digital census will not be acceptable to Sindh unless correct numbers of its population were reported.

Going by the 2021 actual population statistics, Sindh’s population could not be fewer than 75m now, he said while speaking to the media at the residence of PPP leader Dr Irfan Gul Magsi here on Friday.

“It was basically me who had first expressed reservations over the 2017 census results; other parties started raising their voice later. We [Sindh] not only gave a dissenting note, but also took the matter to the parliament and voted against it,” he said.

Mr Shah observed that other parties were delighted to know that the digital census was being conducted now but PPP had questioned it. “I had written 11 letters on the digital census and even today I chaired a meeting [on the subject],” he said, and added that the way this census was held would not be acceptable to Sindh.

He said that Pakistan’s average per household members’ figure stood at 6.2 or 6.3 but Sindh’s is 5.4 in the current census. “It’s good if our population welfare department has performed well but has it performed outstandingly to [control population growth],” he remarked smilingly.

In 2021, he said, Sindh’s population must have been 62m as per actual figures and now it should not be fewer than 75m. “Not only in one or two cities, but counting has not been done properly in the entire Sindh,” he said.

Natural waterways

CM Shah said that natural waterways in the province were being restored but it was indeed a gigantic task for the government. “Villages and cities have emerged on these waterways,” he said, and gave the example of Khairpur, pointing out that the city had developed either on a river or the bank of an old waterway. He said the government had carried out effective works for the restoration of natural waterways after legislation was done in the post-2010 super floods period.

“There used to be rivers in Sindh as barrage was built in 1932 onwards and then came canal systems,” he said. But, he argued, villages existed and people were living near natural waterways which happened to be a centuries-old phenomenon. Then, he said, river was dammed and dykes were raised.

Published in Dawn, April 29th, 2023