The Haripur Chamber of Commerce and Industry said on Wednesday that the biggest threat facing the country is not being addressed.
Pakistan is facing climate challenges, terrorism, floods, drought, corruption, instability, energy crisis, a sinking economy, water scarcity, mafia rule and other threats, but a major threat is a rapidly growing population, a ticking time bomb, which is not being handled on merit, it said.
Pakistan’s available resources and infrastructure is unable to bear the burden of such a large population, said Khurram Sheikh, Patron-in-Chief, Haripur Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
In a statement issued here today, he said that in 1950 the population of Pakistan was 34 million which has now increased to over 240 million and in the next twenty-seven years it will be more than 400 million.
The system will be unable to cater for the needs of the population like providing health, education and employment etc. and the system will simply collapse.
Pakistan’s population has been experiencing exponential growth over the past few decades. Several factors contribute to this increase including high birth rates, limited access to family planning services, cultural norms, and beliefs, he observed.
Khurram Sheikh said that the GDP growth rate sometimes increases and sometimes decreases, but the population growth rate continues to increase straining vital resources, crippling the economy, and overwhelming social infrastructure.
He said that at present, about forty percent of the population is suffering from food insecurity, forty-four percent of the children under the age of five are stunted, and records of maternal and child deaths are also being made.
The business leader noted that agriculture production per acre in the country is alarmingly low while the destruction of important crops due to weather effects has become a regular occurrence.
In these circumstances, the departments created to control the population are suffering from worst governance instead of being active and the division of powers between the Centre and the provinces is not clear which is another favour of the Eighteenth Amendment to this nation.
He said that if attention is not paid to the health, education and skill-building of the youth and the population growth rate is not reduced, millions of youth in the country will take negative paths which will prove disastrous for the economy and society and dealing with them will become impossible.
Therefore, the issue of population should be taken seriously and considered as a matter of national security, he demanded.
