All institutions should promote awareness among the masses about bringing down the population growth rate, as it is vital for the national development and overall economic progress. Otherwise there would not be food autarky, non-availability of clean water, jobs, and residences, said the speakers at a workshop on population control organised by United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and Provincial Population Welfare Department, Punjab.
They said that the resources are getting exhausted due to the abnormal increase in the population in the country and it has to be checked to ensure balance in the resources and the population. They stressed that the religious scholars should be included in the population welfare programmes. The maternal mortality's highest rate in Punjab was also discussed in the workshop showing a great concern towards it.
The speakers, including health practitioners, experts, government officials, representatives of the civil society organisations and others, stressed the need to enhance the budgetary allocations for the health and education sectors in order to provide desired facilities to prevent the maternal and new born child mortality and educate the people, especially the females.
They strongly believed that the men should also be included in the population welfare programmes along with the womenfolk. They said that the mothers' health should be given focal attention in the population welfare programmes to reduce the new born mortality rate. They pointed out that 1/3 women lacked the facilities with regard to the birth control in Pakistan. They also pointed out that the research and authentic data was lacking with regard to the population welfare.
The speakers were of the view that the parliamentarians and the local elected representatives should also have effective role to play in their respective constituencies in this regard. They also stressed that the population welfare issues should be included in the curricula and it should also be introduced as a subject at inter and graduation level.
It was informed that the maternal mortality rate in the Balochistan province is higher than that of the other parts of the country, because of certain problems mainly the poor health facilities for the mothers and new born, lack of knowledge, resources constraints etc. Health authorities underlined the need to promote co-ordination among different institutions whether governmental or non-governmental as well as the international agencies, in order to prevent the ever-increasing population growth rate.
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