'Pakistan to be fourth most populous nation worldwide in few years'

KARACHI: At present, the population of Pakistan is more than 200 million, however, in few years, the country would become fourth most populous nation in the world, the Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) said.

The medical fraternity’s premier body revealed that the birth of 15,000 babies was documented on the first day of 2019 in Pakistan. “The figure shows an alarming increase of over five million in a year.”

With extremely limited resources, such rate of population growth was not a good omen for Pakistan, the PMA said while demanding the government to devise an effective policy to contain the population bomb.

PMA secretary general SM Qaisar Sajjad cited a report issued by the United Nations over the daily number of children’s birth in Pakistan, and said, “We have 450,000 births in a month and 5.4 million in a year. This proves that Pakistan is among the countries registering the fastest population growth in the world.”

The PMA in its analysis finds the situation “distressing”, since, “at the moment 60 per cent of the national population stands below the age of 25 years; 25 million children are not going to school and 90pc population is not being provided with clean drinking water. Malnutrition is another big issue and food scarcity is a grave problem as well,” the PMA official stated.

Further the medical association stressed, “Unchecked rise in population is a looming disaster, and concrete steps should be taken to efficiently implement family planning and make people friendly economic policies to overcome these difficulties and save the coming generations.”