THATTA: Pakistan Peoples Party`s Senator Sassui Palijo has said the federal government`s strategy to keep data of house count and census secret and not share it with the provinces concerned has stoked fears among people of Sindh that the census figures may be changed to serve vested interests.

The federal government should realise the importance of addressing reservations of smaller federating units on census as people of Sindh had a keen interest in the exercise to keep their record straight, she said.

Ms Palijo was talking to journalists af ter attending a briefing by the Thatta deputy commissioner on the census at the DC office in Makli here the other day.

She said that it would be unjustified that the facts, figures and data on house count and census would not be shared with the provinces prior to sending it to the federal ministry concerned.

She said the strategy had stoked fears among the people of Sindh that the data to be compiled under the umbrella of the federal government might be changed to serve vested interests.

It was difficult to understand what were the objectives behind shifting the data collection system on census from Sindh to Islamabad, she said and added that she intended to take up the issue in Senate for legislation and amendment to the Constitution to make the census department an autonomous body.

Ms Palijo said that since the Federal Bureau of Statistics was working under the finance department and the smaller federating units were apprehensive that the dominating Federal Minister for Finance Ishaq Daar and other influential quarters in Nawaz Sharif government could use their influence to manipulate figures in their interest. That was why her party had already moved the court on the issue, she said.

It had transpired during the briefing that even the census figures on block level would not be shared with the district office concerned which meant that the head of census body would be at liberty to make changes of any sort it wanted, she said.