CM Murad Ali Shah vows to bring down fertility rate from 3.6pc to 2.8pc by 2025

Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Murad Ali Shah has said the current total fertility rate (TFR) of the country is 3.6 and his government is committed to bringing it down to 2.8 by 2025 and later to 2.2 per cent by the year 2030.

This he said on Friday while presiding over the 2ndmeeting of the Sindh Population Taskforce at CM House on Friday. The meeting was attended by Minister Health & Population Dr Azra Pechuho, Minister for Labour Saeed Ghani, Minister for Women Development Shahla Raza, Adviser on Social Welfare Aijaz Shah Shirazi, the chairperson of rthe P&D, the secretaries of health and population, school education, information, women development, social welfare, focal person and technical adviser on Costed Implementation Plan (CIP) IP Dr Talib Lashari, CEO PPHI, Shahnaz Wazir Ali, Bayramgul, Garabayeva , head of the UNFPA, Karachi, representative of Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and a representative of USAID.

The meeting discussed various issues at length and expressed satisfaction that Sindh had been leading other provinces in terms of interventions and pursuance of Family Planning-2020 Targets, which are now going to be linked with Sustainable Development Goals Target 2030.

The chair was informed that the survey and study had shown that people were not adopting Family Planning due to weak counseling and misconceptions regarding contraceptives. Functional integration has been generating results in this regard. The public and private sectors are on the same platform for achieving family planning targets.

With reference to compliance of the CCI (Council of Common Interests) recommendations, Dr Talib Lashari, technical adviser, CIP said that most of the recommendations were complied with by the Sindh province.

The chief minister said that despite resource constraints, his government was fully committed to supporting the cause of family planning. He said that the growth rate of population was high, and the federal government should convene a federal taskforce meeting under the prime minister in compliance with the orders of the Supreme Court, so that the support of the federal government for seeking finances could be ascertained.

The chief minister decided to extend the CIP mechanism up to 2025. The CIP is going to end in 2020, it has a through forward financial assistance of Rs1200 million. The CIP requires revision and setting of targets till 2025. In this regard, the chief minister ordered preparing the revised PC-I for placing it before the cabinet. The Reproductive Health Bill will be presented before the cabinet for endorsement and approval.

The recommendations of the taskforce will be put before the cabinet for consideration and necessary action. The chief minister was told that 885 male mobilisers had been trained and regularised to engage them in counselling male members. Some 282 private hospitals had been declared RHCs (rural health centres)-B with the facility of providing free of cost contraceptives. In Karachi, such 26 facilities have been registered.

The chief minister has already directed the Sindh Healthcare Commission to direct 1,000 private hospitals/clinics to set up the mandatory family planning desk. The meeting decided to review the implementation status of the decisions taken so far in the next meeting.