Federal Minister for Population Welfare Chaudhry Shahbaz Hussain said the government has attached the highest priority to the lowering of the population growth rate (PGR) from its current level 1.9 per cent to 1.3 per cent per annum to reaching the replacement level of fertility by the year 2020.
Talking to newsmen, he said the Population Welfare Programme aimed to bring about the country's social and economic development through rational choices about family size and reproductive behaviour. The focus of the Programme is to consistently improve and enrich the lives of individuals, families and communities in accordance with the Reproductive Health programme, he added.
He said the overall vision of the population policy was to achieve population stabilisation by 2020 through the completion of demographic transition. That would be possible by balancing resources and population, creating awareness of the adverse consequence of rapid population growth and reducing the fertility rate.
The demographic scene in Pakistan clearly showed that while it appeared to have made a breakthrough in achieving a declining trend in fertility and population growth rate, those changes were modest.
Despite the fall in the population growth rate, it would take several decades to bring the country's population growth at par with rest of the developing countries. Reduced fertility through enhanced voluntary contraceptive adoption to the replacement level 2.1 births per woman by 2020. Universal access to safe family planning methods by 2010, he added.
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