Ahsan Iqbal expresses concern over ‘rising’ population

ISLAMABAD: Minister for Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal on Friday expressed concern over the rising population of Pakistan, urging provincial governments to make their population control programmes more effective.  

Addressing a news conference after visiting Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) office, the federal minister regretted over population growth ratio of 2.55 percent.

Ahsan Iqbal urged the provincial governments to make their population control programmes more effective to curtail the rising trends of country’s populace.

He also announced that a Data-Fest will be organized in May this year, enabling the private and public sector, civil society, academia, federal and provincial governments to use the census data effectively.

Iqbal said that census data can be used for future planning to improve governance, promote business and strengthen economy.

The Planning Minister said the data collected through 7th Population and Housing Census-2023 is a strategic resource for data driven policymaking.

He said it is the time to get the benefits from the digital Population Census that was conducted last year and was approved unanimously.