Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz on Saturday approved a proposal of the Ministry of Population Welfare to increase the number of 'lady health workers' to 0.1 million this year, and 0.15 million during next year to bring down population growth rate to 1.3 percent.
He was presiding over a meeting here to review the goals and targets of Ministry of Population Welfare. The meeting was also attended by Federal Minister Shahbaz Hussain and senior officials. The PM approved a proposal of the Ministry to increase the number of family welfare centres from the existing 2300 to 4700 so that the facilities are made available to a larger number of people.
The Prime Minister also approved setting up of 275 more mobile units in rural areas. These centres will be set up in co-ordination with provincial governments.
He appreciated that contraceptive prevalence rate (CPR) had increased to 36 percent and said the Ministry should work to achieve the target of 60 percent by 2010. He also agreed to double the number of reproductive health centres from existing 114 to 228.
The Prime Minister appreciated the Ministry of Population Welfare for engaging other departments in their efforts for improvement in marketing of family planning products and expansion of service delivery network of population welfare programme.
Shaukat said that as a result of the government's efforts population growth rate had declined from 3.5 percent in the 1980s to 1.8 percent this year and, by 2020, it would be reduced to 1.3 percent per annum.
He expressed satisfaction over the performance of the Ministry and assured it of his support to achieve improvement in population control.
He said that the government had set up National Population Commission to make focused efforts and involve all stakeholders in the government's efforts for population control, besides providing them guidelines.
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