Population welfare gets Rs1,000m

Lahore: The Provincial government has allocated an amount of Rs1,000 million in the budget 2018-19 for the Population Welfare Department (PWD).

The present Punjab government has earmarked Rs500 million lesser budget than the budget allocated by the former government of PML-N. According to the budget documents, Rs561 million will b spent on the ongoing schemes, Rs226 million on new schemes and Rs20 million on the construction of Family Health Clinic (FHC) Training Centre, Sialkot.

An amount of Rs50 million has been allocated for the third party evaluation of FWCs, FHCs, MSUs and RTIs, Rs 87 for multi-sectoral population welfare programme, Punjab and Rs26 million for e-registration of eligible couples/clients in Bahawalpur, Chiniot, Dera Ghazi Khan, Jhang, Layyah, Multan, Muzfargarh, Rahim Yar Khan, Sahiwal and Sialkot.

As many as Rs28 million have been allocated for franchise of clinical services in Bahawalpur, Chiniot, Faisalabad, Mianwali and Sargodha while Rs15 million have been allocated for completion of incomplete schemes of PWD.

According to the budget documents, the vision of Punjab government is promotion of prosperous, healthy, educated and knowledge-based society where every family is planned, every member nurtured and all citizens are provided with the opportunities and choice to attain improvement in the quality of their lives.

The goal of the present government is to stabilise population growth as an essential requirement for promoting sustainable government and reduce fertility to contain population

momentum by improving access to quality reproductive health care.