KARACHI, June 1: Sindh Governor Mohammedmian Soomro on Saturday called for making such recommendations for activating the family planning and population welfare system which had relevance to our social and economic behaviours.

He was speaking at a function organized to distribute certificates among the Village-Based Family Planning Workers, organized by the Sindh Population Welfare Department at the Dow Medical College.

Mr Soomro said it was an enormous task to check the population growth which either the government or the NGOs alone could not do, so they should join hands and work together to check it.

He said that women could play an effective role in controlling the population growth. He stressed that education be provided to the girl-child so that when these girls grow up and they could take informed decisions regarding their families.

He pointed out that mother’s lap was the first place of learning for the child.

He said that though the population growth rate of the country had come down considerably, it was still was high and needed to be brought down further.

He said that the natural resources were not increasing and these were crumbling under the increasing population and if the population continued to increase at that rate, soon the resources would not be able to sustain it.

Other speakers on the occasion said that the annual population growth rate which at one time was over 3.2 per cent, with committed and consistent efforts made by the committed people had come down to nearly 2.2 per cent, it still needed to be brought down to nearly 1.9 per cent.

They said that population growth rate in the country was among the highest in the SAARC countries as almost all the countries including India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal have controlled their growth rate.

They said that the population growth in many Islamic countries, including Malaysia, Bangladesh (1.7 per cent), Iran (1.4 per cent), Indonesia (1.3 per cent) and Egypt had effectively been controlled so there was no reason that it could not be controlled here as well.

They said that a large number of village based family planning workers have been absorbed in th Sindh Health department and they hoped that they (the workers) would perform their new jobs with the same expertise and give similar results in their new jobs where besides the family planning services they would have to provide complete health services also.

They said that the federal government would allocated budget for the provincial family planning programmes in the respective provinces from the year 2002-2003, and all the employees who were working under the programme in Sindh had been absorbed in the Sindh Health Department under May 2001 Presidential Ordinance.

They also lauded the role played by the non-governmental organisations, particularly those working in the field of population planning.

They however, urged the NGOs, majority of which were involved in activities in urban areas, to extend their service delivery to the remote and rural areas where a vast majority of the population lived and who do not even have basic health facilities.

They said that women’s health also suffered seriously with large number of child births. It also increased the maternal as well as infant mortality rate.

They said that probably by improving the health facilities in the rural areas, villagers would be convinced that their children would survive

Sindh Health Minister Maj-Gen Ehsan Ahmad, Sindh population welfare and health secretaries Ashfaq Memon and Chaudhry Khalid Lateef, Mohammad Abbas, Zeenat Yasmin, Rehana Ahmad, and others also spoke.

Earlier, certificates were also distributed among village based family planning workers who had given outstanding performances.