QUETTA: Balochistan Chief Minister Jam Kamal Khan Alyani has said that increasing population is straining meagre financial resources of the province and there is a need to create awareness among the masses about this crucial issue to check population growth in the province.

The chief minister expre­ssed these views during a meeting of the Federal Task Force on Population Growth which reviewed preparations of recommendations on the issue here on Friday.

Provincial Secretary of Population Imran Gichki informed the meeting said that after the 18th Amend­ment the department of population had been rested with provinces.

He said the ratio of population growth in Balochistan was 3.37 per cent which was the highest in comparison to other provinces of the country.

He said the provincial government had allocated Rs500 million for the population department to improve the capacity of the department.

The meeting was informed that for controlling the population growth and taking effective measures in this regard, the Supreme Court had ordered formation of national and provincial task force to deal with the issue, easy access to procedure of family planning, legislation by the provincial assemblies and seeking support of religious scholars.

The chief minister said that owing to availability of better facilities in cities, population of remote areas was moving towards cities and this trend was increasing the stress on cities.

Mr Alyani said that religious scholars had a crucial role to play in controlling the population growth by creating awareness among the people. “

“We need to make a comprehensive strategy so that the population growth could be controlled,” the chief minister said.

He said that creating awareness among the masses about the issue was very important as low literacy rate was also one of the reasons of the issue.

He urged top officials of departments concerned to devise a proper plan so that growth of population could be checked.

Published in Dawn, August 17th, 2019