Are we ignoring CENSUS 2014 on purpose? By Tariq J Qureshi

Why do I feel that Supreme Court and Election Commission is still living in 1990 especially on issue of census and then demarcation of Constituencies for local bodies’ elections?

Even though we have all the data to accomplish the task, but it seems our government in frozen in time. I saw the CCI’s presentation to then Prime Minister on 6th Population and Housing Census on November 8, 2010. In short, the presentation showed manual process for Census 2011 data collection using 182,000 school teachers and other government employees to cover 146,289 Census blocks of 200-250 Houses/each in 50,666 villages and 7,594 urban areas.

Fast forward to October 2014. What is mind boggling is that in this day and age of computerization and automation, the existing government has no intent to enhance performance & operations using automation like the private sector businesses, banks, manufacturing to commercial, industrial and services sector do.

Think about it, had the 2008-13 PPP led government with PMLN as the friendly opposition really wanted to move the nation forward, they would have focused on Electronic Census & Election processing (e-voting) and saved the nation the embarrassment of alleged massive rigging. But then we have chosen representatives that leave doubts about overall integrity.

The last joint session of parliament showed us what the nation had never seen before, namely shallowness of every directly elected ‘representative’ (MNA) and indirectly elected Senator who fiercely defended their existence in National Assembly and Senate, under the false pretext of defending the Constitution and Democracy.

Never have we seen before the culprits banded together to protect their existence and plunder, while they infringe on people’s rights clearly expressed from Article 7 to Article 40, and yet these representatives have time and again abused the Constitution by ignoring holding Census in 2008 when it was due. Think about it, prior to 2013 elections the Supreme Court ordered selective census in Karachi to demark the constitutional boundaries, which MQM resisted and rightfully argued that the Census should be held throughout Pakistan to fulfill the constitutional requirements for everything effected by it that includes:

(i) Political Representation in National & Provincial Assemblies according to Article 51(3).

(ii) Distribution of funds to the federated units by National Financial Commission as per Article 160(2).

(iii) Quota qualification for recruitment to all civil posts in Federal Government.

(iv) Physical demarcation of Constituencies for National and Provincial Assemblies.

The Census operation every 10 years accomplishes two major things namely (a) Home Listing Operation

and (b) Population and Housing Census.

Now the surprise. Population data already exists with NADRA. At the time of Census 1998, NADRA did not exist. Creation of NADRA in 2000 was one of the greatest achievements and today it has a huge data bank on individuals in Pakistan. This data has been refined and updated over the last 14 years, and today most CNIC renewed have upgraded the quality of data.

NADRA purged its data base of illegal and duplicate cards prior to 2013 elections. In my private talks with ex-Chairman, NADRA could have conducted e-voting on a 6-months’ notice in May 2013 if Government really was serious as they were already working on electronic voting machines.

Now about Census-2011 and utilization of NADRA’s data. It can be directly used for census requirements today. Along with NADRA there is data available in federal and provincial government departments that is ready for import in an integrated data base for Census. Here are the different ready sources of data, that can help complete census in 30-days:

1. NADRA has physical data on 96 Million voting age male and female adults, with present address, permanent address, birth date, number of children with names and age, parents’ names and other data. A complete family tree can be developed within NADRA network.

2. The CRMS System with NADRA records all births, deaths, marriage and divorce data. In other words besides the data on adults it has data for all male/females below 18.

3. Every house in urban and rural area of Pakistan has a physical location marked on distribution maps of utilities companies, including WAPDA, Gas, Water and Sewerage companies. In other words every household is linked with owner’s or property occupant’s CNIC.

4. Besides collection of monthly bills the government collects property tax on urban homes, plots and rural lands and is hence documented. Every piece of agriculture land in Pakistan is demarcated on the map with owners name and CNIC card, and is available in patwarkhana.

5. Every physical house with a floor plan in urban, suburban and some rural area’s has to submit the map to some regulatory body, so the data needed on housing characteristics can be used.

6. Every vehicle/ motorcycle/tractor or other forms of transport are linked to CNIC card and available with Provincial Government.

7. Drivers licenses issued are also linked to CNIC as are the 130 Million cell phones.

The above sources will provide data for 90% of the Census requirements. This data can be further refined for any missing elements by requesting data when CNIC holders come for renewal. One key lesson learnt from other countries is that:

(a) CNIC should be renewed whenever the holder moves from one address to another within the city or out of city. This will automatically record the shifts between different territory, area, province or international.

(b) All elections for National, Provincial and Local Bodies should be held on present address basis as the resident is using the resources of the area where he is presently staying.

Let me end by suggesting that the Government of Pakistan can hold the Census immediately to eliminate the ills of the 16 year gap. Unless the population data for different areas and socio-economic groups in made available we cannot plan education, healthcare, social uplift and public welfare projects to fulfill government obligations to public 1973 Constitution Article 7 to 40.

It is time we focus on creating equal population administrative units without increasing the size of the government. We recommend immediate local bodies elections so that the physical management of smaller areas can be handed off to people’s representatives at local levels to really bring democracy to the doorstep of the people.

The writer is based in Las Vegas, USA

He is a freelance analyst and Social Networks Consultant

by webmaster@insaf.pk (tkiadmin)