KARACHI, Aug 26: Pakistan is ranked the 6th most populous country and the situation has assumed an alarming proportion and warrants our immediate concerted efforts to maintain sway over the population growth rate.

This was stated by Sindh health minister Ehsan Ahmed in his message for a workshop on “Contraceptives Logistic: Management and Forecasting Techniques” held here on Monday under the auspices of the Sindh population welfare department.

While referring to the efforts of the provincial population and health departments for achieving considerable success in bringing down population growth rate substantially during the last two years, he said their endeavours had already been recognised by the federal government, which conferred a performance award on them on the occasion of World Population Day.

He expressed the hope that the workshop would provide better understanding of contraceptive distribution mechanism and forecasting techniques.

He stressed executive district officers (EDOs), health, to shoulder the responsibility of dispensation of contraceptives at the doorsteps of the clients.

Secretary, health, Khalid Latif Chaudhry, instructed the EDOs to strengthen their collaboration with population welfare department and ensure quality, service and proper delivery of contraceptives at all outlets.

“Unplanned population growth is a very serious matter for the nation and recently the population welfare department has done a good job in checking the population growth, however a lot more needs to be done,” he said.

Ashfaq Memon, secretary, population welfare department, said a big segment of population was seeking family planning methods, but owing to restricted service network their accessibility to the same was limited.

He said employees of the health department were to be oriented to help accomplish family planning targets.

Shahab Khawaja, additional secretary, ministry of population welfare, said today Pakistan is ranked the 6th most populous country and it is feared that by 2015 the country may attain the third position.—APP