KARACHI, Oct 17: Shortage of contraceptives for the past six months, the process of devolving the population programme from the federal government to the provinces, late payment of salaries and delayed releases of funds for operational expenses have affected the performance of the population welfare department.

This came to fore when the newly appointed secretary of the department, Mushtaq Ali Memon, paid surprise visits to various population welfare centres in District East Karachi on Thursday, where he was informed that the performance of the centres had declined to 50 percent on account of the above mentioned facts.

Mr Memon asked Ms Nasreen Zohra Hassan to ensure that contraceptives were supplied to the centres regularly and no shortage was faced in future. He assured that all the problems faced by the officers would be solved and, if needed, he would request minister of population affairs Maj-Gene Ahsan Ahmed to help the department in that connection.—PPI