ISLAMABAD: The centre has sought to delink the distribution of divisible pool resources among the provinces from the population-based National Fina­nce Commission (NFC), as the seventh national census showed over 2.8pc population growth pushing Pakistan to become the “fastest growing country in the world”.

Minister for Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal at a news briefing on Wednesday said: “The existing [NFC] formula is regressive, as it provides 80pc weight to population and actually incentivise population growth.”

As a result, even the holding of an authentic census has become close to impossible as “there exist serious fault lines in two provinces Sindh and Balochistan” and no meeting points because of urban-rural and Baloch-Pakhtun divide, respectively, the minister said, adding that every segment wanted to show its higher population to have greater say in matters of employment, finance, representation and so on.

His comments came on the sidelines of a detailed meeting on updates of the just concluded 7th population census in which the two larger provinces dema­nded yet another extension (to be sixth if approved) to the census. Punjab demanded five more days and Sindh proposed a grace period of three to four days to complete the re-verification process.

The minister, who heads the monitoring committee on census, directed that evidence-based justification be provided for “verification and rectification of census data”, to reach a decision, according to an official, indicating the census process may take time to conclude despite official announcements for its field work completion on May 15.

Successive governments have not been able to deliver an NFC award for distribution of resources among the centre and its federation units after the expiry of previous one in December 2014 though constitution makes it mandatory to have a fresh NFC every five years. The consensus award of 2009 had been under criticism for transferring too many resources to the provinces, chiefly on the basis of population, and for leaving the centre as a pauper to deal with heavy debt servicing and defense.

Mr Iqbal said there would be no solution to authenticity of census data unless it was delinked from resource distribution. The minister, who was also assisted by chief census commissioner, said the population growth under the new census was about 2.7pc compared to 2.4pc under the sixth national census. “This has very serious ramifications and Pakistan will become a joke,” he warned, adding that India had delinked the population from resource distribution for two decades and made progress.

Another official said the population growth was actually 2.8pc. The count showed over 3pc growth in Sindh and even higher rate in some districts of Balochistan like 22.3pc in Punjgur. It increased by 2.71pc in Islamabad capital territory as well.

The census commissioner said the higher population growth and the count would mean that per capita income of Pakistanis would decline, the country could fall to lower middle-income states, foreign direct investment would suffer and all other social indicators would worsen.

“No enemy needs to pull us down, this population growth alone will do,” the minister remarked, reiterating that the government would have to separate population from NFC and incentivise provinces to demographic and social improvement.

He said the government was working on three key elements — investment in education, health and population control — to ensure equity among the citizens as part of 5Es-based public. He said five Es — export growth, e-Pakistan, environment, energy and equity — would be centre of next year budget.

Responding to questions, Mr Iqbal said the government had been heavily focused since it came to power on plugging the gaps on CPEC created by four years of mismanagement, incompetence, bad mouthing and stalling Chinese investment for appeasement of the west and related projects.

Responding to question, he said ML-1 railway project that remained stalled all these years was in “very advance stages” and terms of financing were being negotiated and the Chinese side was finalising its firms for bidding of the railway project. He said the $10bn worth of 1872-km Karachi to Peshawar railway project would be undertaken in three phases.

Published in Dawn, May 18th, 2023