LAHORE, Sept 22: Federal population welfare secretary Shahzad Sheikh has said that two new cities of the size of Sargodha and Sialkot were needed for absorbing three million people being added to the population every year and maintaining the existing poverty line.

He was speaking at the concluding session of a consultative meeting on the ‘Role of Ulema, Media and Civil Society in Welfare Programmes’ organised by the Rahnuma Family Planning Association of Pakistan here on Friday.

He said population increase posed a big challenge for the government as $4.5 billion new investment was required to generate resources for the people being added to the population every year.

He said the government was not faced with the challenge of rapid population growth alone. It also faced the problem of 1.7 million children being born with some handicap every year due to one reason or the other. Deteriorating health of expectant mothers due to inadequate spacing between births was one of the reasons of birth of handicapped children.

Mr Sheikh said 43 per cent population was around 15 years of age while 53 per cent was at productive age and was contributing to the economy. The country had 22 million illiterate people when it had 44,000 schools 30 years ago. The number of schools had increased to 150,000 but the number of illiterate people had also swelled to 55 million.

He said the government was making all possible efforts to create awareness about the population increase problems by holding regular sessions at college and university levels. It had now decided to hold meetings with ulema, media and other community groups on the issue.