KARACHI, June 7: Sindh Population Welfare Department has sent a summary to the Sindh government suggesting various incentives and proposals to control growing birth rate. It has been suggested that birth of two children will not only entitle them to free education up to graduation but also their parents will enjoy free medical treatment in their entire lifetime.

This was stated by Sindh Population Minister Welfare Ali Bukhsh Shah while speaking as chief guest at prize distribution ceremony of a speech contest here on Tuesday. The topic of the competition was “Population and Development”.

The minister said besides other incentives, recommendation had been made for concession in railway and air fares for parents with two children.

Ali Bukhsh said that 10 more service delivery outlets would be established so that people were provided with medicines and other health facilities at their doorsteps.

He said Sindh would be the first province which had decided to take practical steps by showing dissatisfaction on increasing population and expressed hope that approval of this summary would greatly help control population explosion.

He said the province also had the distinction of reducing population growth rate from 2.5 per cent to 1.9 per cent since 2003. He declared that with intensified efforts, this rate would be brought down to 1.6 per cent.

Speaking on the occasion, Secretary Population Welfare Mohsin Qureshi said the youth constitutes 43 per cent of the country’s population and they needed to be informed about the effects of growing population.

Having a realization of its seriousness, he suggested that a subject like population growth should be made a part of the syllabus.

Later, the minister distributed prizes among students winning top positions in the speech contest.

Abdul Hannan, a student of Sanghar, won first prize of Rs15,000; Rahim Dino, also from Sanghar, grabbed second position with a cash award of Rs10,000 and Ayaz Latif from Badin and Samrin Sammo from Thatta shared the third prize of Rs5,000.

Over 2,600 boys and girls from 22 districts participated in the competition. — APP