'Government committed to creating awareness about small family'

Parliamentary Secretary for Population Welfare, Dr Donia Aziz said government had taken a number of new initiatives with a view to create awareness among the masses about small family concept. She was addressing training programme for supervisory and field staff for conducting national survey on maternal mortality, here on Wednesday.
She said government was striving hard to achieve its objectives by pursuing the population policy goals. The aim of the government was to reduce population growth rate from 1.9 percent per annum to 1.3 percent by 2020.
She said Government has sought the services of ulema and religious scholars to remove the misunderstandings among the people about the family planning. She said steps were underway to control the maternal and infant mortality rate.
Dr Donia Aziz said on the basis of the survey a national policy on Population Planning will be framed. She said it would be announced after the completion of the survey next year.
Secretary Ministry of Population Welfare, Shahzado Sheikh speaking on the occasion said the national survey on maternal mortality will design broader strategies for evolving health and population programmes focusing on maternal mortality and national health distribution to ensure homogenous geographical coverage specially in rural areas and marginalised communities.