ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for National Health Services and Regulations Abdul Qadir Patel, Monday, while stressing the need for greater awareness among the masses on family planning to check the rapidly growing population, has said that the government was committed to improving the living standards of the citizens.

He said this here while addressing a seminar. Thanking the religious’ scholars, he said that they were greatly cooperating with the government in that regard.

He said “we want to provide better health and education services to our population from the available resources.”

He said that by 2030, Pakistan’s population would cross 285 million mark from the current 220 million and to cater to the needs of the additional population, the state would need additional resources in all the sectors which, for a country such as Pakistan, was an uphill task.

The minister, while expressing serious concern over the regular killings of the polio vaccination workers in various parts of the country, said those polio workers were going to save the lives of children in remote and far-flung areas but they were being targeted and murdered just because vaccination was against the religious beliefs of some people which was really tragic and unfortunate.

He said that over the years some 60 polio vaccination workers had been murdered countrywide.

The minister suggested to couples who wanted more children that if they wanted to have more children, they could go to a country where there were fewer Muslims so that the Muslim population could increase in those countries.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022