PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa population welfare department has proposed a five years multi-sectoral population control programme at the cost of Rs12.12 billion.

The proposal was presented before the provincial cabinet last month for approval with a request for the provision of Rs2.2 billion but it was referred to the provincial task force on population, which is headed by the chief minister.

The summary, which the population welfare department placed before the cabinet, said the funding required by the departments concerned for the programme was Rs2.3 billion for 2019-20 and Rs9.78 billion for the 2020-24 period.

Of the amount required in the current fiscal, Rs248 million will go to the population welfare department, Rs2 billion to health department, Rs17 million to elementary and secondary education department (E&SED), Rs20 million to local government department and Rs2 million to auqaf and religious affairs department.

The breakdown of funds required between 2020 and 2024 shows that of Rs9.7 billion, Rs7.6 billion will go to the health department, Rs1.33 billion to population welfare department, Rs709 million to E&SED department, Rs60 million to local government department and Rs8 million to auqaf and religious affairs department.

The document noted that the Supreme Court considering family planning as the basic human rights had taken a suo motu notice of high population growth rate in July 2018 and formed a task force to frame actionable recommendations to address the issue.

It said the task force agreed in a series of meetings on a set of recommendations, which were placed before the Supreme Court, which approved them and directed the national health services ministry to place them before the Council of Common Interest for consent.

The CCI approved the recommendations in Nov 2018 and directed the NHS ministry to prepare an action plan with financial modalities for the proposals in consultation with provinces.

The document said the Provincial Action Plan prepared in light of the CCI’s directions was presented before the Provincial Population Task Force Implementation Committee in Jan 2019 that ordered the working out of the financial implication of the proposals and their presentation before the cabinet.

It said one of the recommendations approved by the CCI was the creation of a special fund for reducing population growth rate with annual allocation of Rs10 billion exclusively from the federal resources without any cut from the provincial funds to provide 50 per cent cost of contraceptives purchased by provinces over and above last year, recruitment of lady health workers for 100 per cent coverage of provinces, and execution of innovative projects of health and population welfare departments.

A senior official at the population welfare department told Dawn that the cabinet had referred the matter to the provincial task force on population for consideration in its meeting last month.

He said the federal task force was scheduled to meet on July 8, while KP Chief Minister Mahmood Khan would attend it.

The official said the centre had asked the province to share with the federal task force the progress made on the matter.

He said the provincial task force’s meeting was likely to happen after the federal task force met.

The results of the 2017 population census show that the province’s population excluding the merged districts’ had surged from 17 million in 1997 to 30 million in 2017 at the rate of 2.89 per cent annually.

Published in Dawn, July 5th, 2019