Ministry forms action plan for population control

Plan to be presented for approval of National Task Force on Population Control

ISLAMABAD: The Ministry of Health has formulated for population control an action plan, which will be presented for approval of the National Task Force on Population Control, headed by Prime Minister Imran Khan. The action plan is formulated on directives of the Council of Common Interest (CCI).

In case of an approval, the action plan will be implemented all over the country. According to the documents, the federal and provincial governments will speed up their efforts to control the population growth under the proposed action plan.

The Ministry of Health held consultations will all stakeholders including the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and then prepared a draft entitled ‘Pakistan Population Vision 2018-30’.

Targets have been set in this draft to control the population. According to the draft, the fertility rate or growth rate will be reduced to 2.1%; the contraceptive prevalence rate will be increased to 70% and the child and maternity mortality rates will be reduced.

According to the draft, the government would aim at obtaining universal productive health services by 2025. The draft will be sent to the federal task force formed under the PM for approval.

Under this plan, guidelines, action and family planning projects will be prepared to control population in the country. The documents state that the federal and provincial governments have allocated a reasonable amount in the coming budget for population control and welfare programmes.

The federal government has proposed allocating Rs438.6 million while the provinces have proposed allocating Rs7.7735 billion for this purpose.

Last year, former chief justice of Pakistan (CJP) Saqib Nisar had ordered formation of a task force at the federal and provincial levels – to be headed respectively by the prime minister and chief ministers – to control population growth.

The Supreme Court had ordered the task force to formulate an action plan for population control