Pakistan’s population has reached 207.7 million, as per Pakistan Bureau of Statistics in a census summary published recently.

According to the census carried out recently, the total population of Pakistan is 207,774,520

The growth rate of 4.91% was seen in Islamabad. This was said to be the highest growth rate of Pakistan. Now the population of the capital is 2,006,572 as compared to 805,235, which was recorded in 1998.

Punjab lead the charts with a population of 110 million while surprisingly, Sindh had a population of 47 million; where as KPK was recorded having 30 million, with Balochistan having 12 million residents.

On the other hand, there has been a decrease in the percentage of urban population in ICT which has gone down to 50.58%. This indicates that the growth has occurred in rural areas of Islamabad. Whereas, out of 47 million in Sindh, 52% of them lives in urban areas.

To this result, there was concern shown by PPP’s MPA Senator Saeed Ghani who said that it isn’t possible that 52% of Sindh’s population inhabit in cities. He believes that Punjab is the most urbanized province.

He clearly stated,

“It seems that the figures are wrong.”

MQM’s Senator Tahir Mashhadi tweeted:

“It is obvious that census figures have been manipulated by vested interests in Sindh. Wrong figures have very adverse effects.”

MQM-P leader, Farooq Sattar said that the population of Karachi is 30 million and not 10.6 million as shown by the census.

Showing his reservations about the report, Khursheed Shah, the opposition leader, said that there should be a comparison between records of Statistics Division and the Pakistan Army.

Contributed by: Sakina Haider