By Ajmal Khan Yousafzai
ISLAMABAD: President Dr. Arif Alvi on Wednesday said that Pakistan has adopted a multi-pronged approach to check population growth and address other issues like mother child health, malnutrition and stunting growth.
The multi-pronged strategy included women empowerment through financial inclusion besides creating awareness about the importance of gap in birth through various means of communication and taking on board various segments of the society including Ulema, he added.
The President expressed these views while addressing a virtual Dissemination Seminar on Population Analysis.
Speaking about the president government‘s commitment to address the issue of population growth, he said Prime Minister Imran Khan soon after coming into power took up-the issue of malnutrition and stunting growth and subsequently various measures were taken to address the problem.
The President said that as compared to the previous government’s tenure of 2013-18 when this issue was not taken care of, the present government was making lot of efforts to address the issues of population growth, malnutrition, stunting growth and mother child health.
He said that as frequent pregnancies led to stunting growth of child besides affecting the health of mother there was a need to create awareness among masses about the importance of gap in birth and the use of contraceptives.
The President in that respect also referred to Quranic teachings which called for two-year breast-feeding of children.
He said the present government’s strategy to check population growth also included the financial inclusion of women in main stream economy and providing them opportunities of jobs and businesses.
The President said he had been told by the Governor State Bank that under the present government’s soft loans scheme, women were also being offered loans up to Rs.5 million .
Similarly, he added that poor women were being provided cash assistance through the government’s Ehsaas Programme and were being encouraged to open bank accounts to receive the financial assistance.
The President said as there was no authentic data of differently abled persons in the country he has been told that the data would made available by June 2021 through a survey by Ehsaas.
About women empowerment, he said the present government was also taking measures to protect the inheritance rights of women, adding, in that respect a meeting would also be held at the Aiwan-e-Sadr.
The President while talking about the second wave of COVID-19 pandemic advised the people to continue to adopt the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) including keeping social distancing, frequent hand washing and use of face covering to check the spread of the virus.
