KARACHI: The Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) on Sunday said the country registered birth of 15,000 babies on the first day of the New Year, showing an increase of over five million in a year, which was not a good omen for a country which had miserably limited resources to run itself.

It demanded the government to formulate an effective policy to control the alarmingly increasing population.

“The PMA has been raising its voice for long to curb the rapid increase of population in Pakistan. The birth of 15,000 babies in Pakistan on the first day of 2019 is an alarming sign,” said PMA secretary general SM Qaisar Sajjad in a policy statement of the medical fraternity’s premier body.

The PMA official cited a report issued by the United Nations agency for children giving the number of births per day in Pakistan.

“It means we have 450,000 births in a month and 5.4 million in a year. This proves that Pakistan is among the countries registering the fastest population growth in the world.”

The PMA said at present Pakistan was a country with more than 200 million people and in a few years it would be the fourth most populous nation in the world.

“The PMA thinks that it is a distressing situation as at the moment 60 per cent of the national population stands below the age of 25 years; 25 million children are not going to school and 90pc population is not being provided with clean drinking water. Malnutrition is another big issue and food scarcity is a grave problem as well.

“The PMA believes that the unchecked rise in population is a looming disaster, and concrete steps should be taken to efficiently implement family planning and make people friendly economic policies to overcome these difficulties and save the coming generations.”

Dr Sajjad told Dawn that the increasing population was an increasing health related burden on the country in addition to several other issues that were eating up Pakistan’s meagre resources and shrinking wealth.

He said the healthcare infrastructure instead of expanding had deteriorated with the passage of time, and the situation posed greater dangers due to a rapidly increasing population.

“There were only three major public sector hospitals in Karachi decades ago when the city’s population was 3.5 million and now when it hosts 25m people, we have not seen a single new hospital; instead, the existing ones’ health delivery system has deteriorated,” said Dr Sajjad.

He added same was the case with other sectors as water was not enough; its supply lines had weakened and the sanitation system had gone down.

“We have no schools for our children whose number is on the rise. The housing problem is getting worse and there is no transport system for a mega city of this size to offer proper mobility to its people. Same things apply to the rest of the country there or thereabouts.”

He said the governments in the centre and in the four provinces would have to devise policies to control the alarming rising population.

In addition to controlling the population growth, the governments should also make sure that the people living in Pakistan get proper facilities in various sectors.

Published in Dawn, January 7th, 2019