Islamabad: During Senate Session, Federal Minister (FM) for Parliamentary Affairs Ali Muhammad Khan said that first time in the history of Pakistan population census is being conducted on the instructions of Prime Minister (PM).

PM believes that planning cannot be done without knowing the actual population, therefore, he decided to conduct census during his tenure of five years.

As per details, during question/answer session, Federal Minister for Planning submitted a written answer containing information that an expenditure of Rs.16.884 billion was made on conducting Population Synthesis 2017. Digital census has been started on 7th Population census and home count-2022. A pilot session of population census shall be conducted from 15 May, 2022 to 15 June, 2022. Complete field operation shall be started from 01 Aug, 2022 to 31 Aug, 2022.

FM Ali Muhammad Khan added that first time in the history of Pakistan, PTI is conducting population census with a gap of five years after 2017. He further added that PMLN increased the duration of next population from 10 years to 17 years. He also held that Election Commission shall be in a better position to explain position of constituencies after fresh synthesis.

Ali Muhammad Khan said while answering a question about raise in the prices of daily use commodities that there will be reduction in inflation after next 3-4 months. He said that Government cannot deny inflation. He further added that first time in the history better rates are set for farmers and they are earning income of around Rs.1100.000 billion from their crops.

Ali Muhammad khan told that Ehsaas program has been extended from Rs.121.000 billion to Rs.260.000 billion and subsidies are given on cooking oil and flour.

He further added that inflation is a global trend and prices of daily use commodities are not increased in the country that much as compared to the other countries in the region. He informed that inflation rate was 35.1 % in Iran, 21.3% in Turkey and 12.3% in Kirghizstan in 2021. Ali Muhammad Khan said that Pakistan is importer of daily use commodities such as crude oil, cooking oil, wheat, sugar, grains etc and rise in the prices of these commodities is not due to the situation of country. He accepted that there is inflation in the country and Federal Government is taking all possible measures to control inflation.