ISLAMABAD, June 9: First-ever population policy will be announced in July with a view to achieve the goals of family planning.

This was disclosed by Federal Minister for Population Welfare and Special Education Dr Attiya Inayatullah in an interview with this news agency here on Sunday.

The policy, being finalized by the ministry of population, would highlight the issues of population stabilization, plans for direct link with masses and to reach out to younger population effectively, the minister said.

She said her ministry was the first to implement the devolution of power plan and from July 1, some 11,500 employees would be handed over to the provinces and the ministry would have only 1,000 staff at the federal capital.

Dr Attiya said the ministry of population planning had prepared a comprehensive plan to implement restructuring and revitalization of population budget for better results in this sector.

She said the budget for the ministry was Rs1.74 billion in the year 2001-02 and the ministry had proposed to increase it to Rs3 billion for the next fiscal year.

She said the main issue was not the budget but utilization of available resources effectively and properly. The minister said since 1947, the country’s population had quadruple and reached 144 million and Pakistan had become 7th most populated country of the world. She said during the year 2001-02, the GNP was 2.6 while the population growth rate was 2.2 per cent.

Referring to goals and targets of population planning, the minister said, in 1981 the population growth rate was 3.1 per cent per annum which had been reduced to 2.1 per cent in 2002 and the target before the government was to reduce it further to 1.9 per cent by 2004 and to 1.6 per cent by the year 2012. — APP