700 trained clerics to help maintain balance between population, resources in KP: CM
Staff Reporter Peshawar
The third meeting of Provincial Population Task Force (PPTF) was held here with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Mahmood Khan in the chair on Tuesday.
The meeting was attended by members of provincial cabinet Shahram Tarakai, Taimur Salim Jhagra, Akbar Ayub, Fazal Shakoor, Kamran Bangash, Ahmad Hussain Shah, Muhammad Zahoor, Chief Secretary Dr Kazim Niaz, Administrative Secretaries of departments concerned and other member of the task force.
Besides, implementation status of the decisions taken in the last meeting of the PPF, progress made so far on the decisions of Federal Task Force and Provincial Action Plan were reviewed in details during the meeting.
While expressing the satisfaction over the progress on provincial action plan, the forum underlined the need to further improve it and decided to constitute a ministerial committee comprising provincial cabinet members which would come up with workable and solid proposals to implement the Action Plan in an effective way.
The committee members include Minister for Health Taimur Salim Jhagra, Minister Education Shahram Khan Tarakai, Minister Local Government Akbar Ayub, Special Assistant for Population Welfare Ahmad Hussain Shah, Special Assistant for Information Kamran Bangash and Special Assistant for Religious Affairs Muhammad Zahoor.
Briefing the forum about the progress on the Provincial Action Plan, it was informed that in the light of the decision of Council of Common Interest regarding establishing National and Provincial Task Forces, Provincial Population Task Force was set up and an Implementation Committee as well as provincial task force secretariat was notified.
It was informed that in order to create balance between population and resources federal monitoring and evaluation framework was reviewed at provincial level adding that feed back on that framework had also been provided to federal government.
In order to ensure universal access to family planning and reproductive health services, all the public health facilities, BHUs, RHCs, THQs, DHQs and Tertiary Healthcare facilities were mandated to deliver family planning services as part of the essential services package. Similarly, contraceptives have been made part of essential drug lists.
NGOs and civil society organizations were working in close coordination with provincial health and population welfare departments to extend family planning services to under-served and un-served areas.
