ISLAMABAD, Oct 20: District Nazim Tariq Kiani has underlined the need to check the high growth rate of the country’s population, saying that it was the most serious hurdle in the task of national development.

Mr Kiani made these remarks while attending a briefing at the ministry of population welfare on Saturday morning.

He egged on the district population welfare officers for a more proactive role in what, he said, was going to be the focal point of efforts in the new political set up.

Assuring them of his full cooperation, Mr Kiani said he would include population in his regular district monitoring activities. He particularly asked to be provided the schedule of the mobile service units in the district.

Earlier, population welfare secretary Mohammad Tariq Janjua briefed him on the serious implications of the high population growth rate, pointing out that one-third of the population lived below the poverty line and less than half of it had access to safe drinking water.

Mr Janjua informed the Nazim that at the current growth rate of 2.1 per cent, the country’s population would grow to 220 million in the next 20 years. However, he added, population welfare programmes had effectively brought down the growth rate from three per cent to 2.1 per cent during the last decade.