KARACHI: The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the Sindh Assembly on Tuesday directed the provincial government to establish population welfare centres in all 1,600 union councils (UCs) across the province to control rising birth rate.

The PAC meeting, presided over by its Chairman Nisar Ahmed Khuhro, also recommended including a section in the marriage certificate (nikahnama) to make mandatory the HIV/AIDS and thalassaemia tests of married couples.

In addition, the committee directed the relevant departments to ensure that registered nikahkhwans verified those test reports prior to solemnising marriages.

The PAC further instructed the health department, population welfare department, and local government department to develop a coordinated mechanism to implement these measures.

Asks govt to set up population welfare centres in all 1,600 UCs across province

Committee member Taha Ahmed and Population Welfare Secretary Hafeezullah Abbasi were among those present at the meeting, which reviewed audit reports of the population welfare department for the years 2018 to 2020.

Mr Khuhro asked the department what mechanism it had for family planning in the province. The population welfare secretary informed the committee that the department currently operated 900 population centres across Sindh.

He said that nearly 11,000 children were born in the province every day. However, there was a shortage of lady health workers, with about 40pc of the province lacking adequate coverage. Currently, only 18,000 lady health workers were employed for family planning services, he added.

He also said that the minimum qualification for lady health workers was matriculation but due to a shortage of matric-passed girls, permanent recruitment had been difficult. To address that, the People’s Primary Healthcare Initiative (PPHI) had developed a strategy to recruit lady health workers on a contractual basis through a third-party company.

Published in Dawn, May 7th, 2025