ISLAMABAD: Minister for Law and Justice Zahid Hamid on Tuesday informed the Senate that there the next population census could likely be possible between November this year and March 2017.
The federal minister was responding to a calling attention notice moved by ruling party Senator Abdul Qayyum.
Hamid said that conducting population in the given time period was subject to improvement of the security situation in the country as well as the availability of troops to help carry out the census exercise.
The minister pointed out that the decision to defer the census was taken at the meeting of the Council of Common Interest (CCI) in February this year due to the non-availability of sufficient number of personnel from the armed forces.
Hamid said that nobody could deny the significance of census and it was the PML-N which conducted the last census in 1998.
Taking part in the debate, Senator Mohsin Aziz said Parliament and other stakeholders should be involved in the budget making process in order to make the document people-oriented. He said the government had failed to achieve economic targets during the current financial year. Its tax amnesty scheme has failed to bring sufficient entrepreneurs into the tax net, he said.
Senator Kamil Ali Agha said the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor was an important project and it should be completed within a given timeframe. He said that preference should be given to the completion of the western route and maximum resources should be earmarked in the budget for this purpose.
Senator Muhammad Ali Saif said the budget envisages no concrete measures for the relief of the common man.
Senator Saifullah Magsi said the tax regime is repressive as the common man has been overburdened with indirect taxes. He said the government had done nothing to reduce agriculture input cost.
Senator Mohsin Khan Leghari appreciated the government’s steps towards broadening the tax net. He said the government should provide subsidy to the farmers on fertilizers as is being given in neighbouring India.
The House will now meet Wednesday morning at 11:00AM.
