The National Assembly Standing Committee on Population Welfare criticised the ministry for not properly implementing policies of National Trust for Population Welfare (Natpow). The committee asked the ministry to set up a separate vigilant directorate to monitor the progress.
The meeting was chaired by Gul-e-Farkhanda MNA at Parliament House. All the committee members including Federal Minister for Population Chaudhry Shehbaz Hussain attended the meeting.
The chairperson pointed out that the ministry was not able to implement the project for the last many years despite availability of the required funds. She said that at least 5,000 vacancies were lying vacant across the country in the population sector, which have not yet been filled by the concerned authority.
The chairperson especially mentioned the poor condition of Family Welfare Centers (FWCs) in Northern Areas adding that she visited personally the far-flung centres, where no services were available adding that available outlets in the area were also below the required standard. She deplored that different goals of International Conference on Population Development (ICPD) were asked to be divided to ensure proper implementation, but the ministry negated the suggestion saying that there were reservations on some of the suggestions of the conference and these could not be implemented completely.
Referring to the Islamabad Ulema Conference, secretary population said that according to its declaration, they could not practice any such thing, which was considered against the Quran and Sunnah.
The committee also suggested that along with the other ministries, youth ministry should also be included in the Natpow to streamline youth segment of the society in the country.
The committee also asked the ministry to fill the vacant posts in the population sector to ensure timely completions of the ongoing projects. Responding to the questions, Secretary Population Shehzado Shaikh said that implementation was the task of provincial governments and the centre had handed over the required resource to them. He also said that population growth target could not be achieved without giving training to all the doctors and paramedical staff.
He rejected the suggestion of the committee to set up a separate vigilant directorate in the ministry saying that capacity for such directorate was not existing in the PC-I of the project and ministry could not set up the same without planning commission's prior approval.
About NAs, the secretary said that due to lack of infrastructure and existence of special socio-cultural values in the area, the ministry was still unable to achieve its goals. The committee directed the ministry to ensure the presentation of representatives from all the concerned provinces including AJK and NAs in the next meeting of the committee.