ISLAMABAD: Certain elements don’t want population census to be conducted in the country, as it would threaten their vested interests.
Population census will reveal the true picture about the province- and locality-wise population, and hence would affect the redistribution of national resources through the National Finance Commission (NFC) award, said Dr Tahir Jamil, renowned academician and expert in social sciences, during a special lecture on “Demographic transition in Pakistan: challenges and opportunities” held by the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) on Monday.
Dr Tahir Jamil said that unfortunately we have become a nation that has total disregard for data and information. “Hence we fail to develop and design policies according to the real needs of different segments of society.”
“We have lost huge opportunities that our youth bulge have been offering for the past 20 years,” Dr Tahir said, and added that if we did not come up with proper policies to capitalise the opportunities in the future, they would not remain available to us after the next 20 years.
He suggested that provision of quality education and planning based on data were the only way forward for us to remain relevant in this competitive world in the coming years. With the help of his detailed presentation, Dr Tahir said that economic growth could be achieved as a result of demographic transition, as “it provides you the basis for the maximum use of the population potential”.
He explained that the demographic dividend was not itself an economic benefit but provided an opportunity to reap the economic benefits resulting because of it. “To turn such a demographic shift into economic benefit, a well-thought-out economic planning is needed.”
Dr Tahir said that Pakistan’s economic development, health condition and education were not encouraging because of imbalanced population growth. He suggested that the fundamental challenge for a political government was to stabilise the level of population in order to increase productivity.
Shahid Minhas of the SDPI had earlier highlighted the importance of demographics and said that due to non-availability of information about the population, the developmental initiatives – including those in the health and education sectors – had failed to produce desired results.
