July 12, 2003	Saturday	Jumadi-ul-Awwal 11, 1424

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ISLAMABAD, July 11: Pakistan, with the financial assistance of donor organizations, will take every possible step to check its population, currently growing at the rate of 2.06 per cent per annum, Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali said.

He was speaking as chief guest at the National Population Convention, organized by the population welfare ministry in connection with the World Population Day here on Friday.

The prime minister said the government attached top priority to population control programmes. In the present scenario, no country can move forward if its population growth rate and economic progress do not strike balance, he added.

He said despite the fact that massive funding was available for family planning programmes in the country, things were not moving in the right direction due to lack of effective policy implementation.

The time has come, when the people of Pakistan, both at individual and collective level, should take the responsibility to check population growth, he said.

Mr Jamali said a number of problems would be automatically solved if people started realizing that the country could not afford doubling of its present population (146 million).

He also assured the NGOs working for population control of the government’s full support, and asked them to reach out to every nook and corner of the country.

Sharing a light moment on the occasion, the prime minister said, at present, Balochistan was under-populated and needed more individuals to get its funding’ share from the federal government.

In response to health minister Mohammad Nasir Khan’s proposal that a special committee should be constituted on population under the chairmanship of the prime minister, he said it was not possible for him to head such a body, however some responsible person would be appointed for the job.

Advisor to the prime minister on women development Nilofar Bakhtiar, speaking on the occasion, expressed her disappointment over the increasing number of jobless youth in the country.

Every year, the country’s population is increasing by 3.1 million as per the current population growth rate.

Therefore, if the situation remains the same, it is useless to expect that the county will develop on a par with other developing nations of the world.

Federal Minister for Health Mohammad Nasir Khan, who was also present on the occasion, said population and health should be dealt with on a par with security issues.

An inter-sectoral approach is the need of the hour as education, health and population ministries go side by side in terms of policy making.

He said private-public partnership should be encouraged to create awareness on issues such as family planning, water-borne diseases and reproductive health issues.

Population welfare ministry secretary Abdur Rashid Khan, in his welcome speech, talked about the on-going projects of the ministry to control population growth.

He said as the annual budgetary allocations had been increased by 50 per cent this year, the ministry was hopeful that it would be able to decrease population growth from its current rate of 2.06 per cent.

The secretary said, at present, 63 per cent of total population of the country comprised adolescents. Taking it as an opportunity, the government should massively invest in education sector for their skill development.

United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) representative in Pakistan Olivier Brasseur said the country had a huge youth population, hence the government should pay special attention in this regard.