Over-population leads to several social, economic problems: Survey

ISLAMABAD—The country has confronting with overpopulation problems that leads to the creation of several other social and economic problems, revealed Economic Survey of Pakistan released here on Sunday.
Population growth is a complex issue that directly or indirectly impacts all aspects of our lives and the conditions under which we live, from the environment and global stability to women’s health and empowerment.
The population boom has not only resulted in an economic upheaval in developing countries rather it is also the primary cause of environmental degradation. The biological threat of ever increasing population has accompanied with shortage of safe drinking water, diminishing forest resources, climate change due to depletion of ozone layer among other things. Other forms of environmental pollution associated with population are naval pollution, noise pollution, depletion of land resources etc. Besides these environmental pollution has also damaged the beauty and serenity of nature. Almost half of the world population is urbanized because of which traffic problems have multiplied, land erosion, and solid waste disposal are the major civic problems of today.
Pakistan being a developing country also faces the problem of over population. During the past 25 years, cultivable land has increased by 27 per cent compared to 98 per cent increase in population, resulting in reduced individual land holdings in the country.
Due to a high birth rate urban population will double in the next 20 years causing more and more forests to be cut to make way for humanity. Even now each year, deforestation occurs at the rate of 2.5 percent. In addition, since only 60 per cent of our population has sewerage facility, the remaining 40 per cent churn out wastes damaging the environment and causing a lot of diseases. Rising levels of income on the one hand and easy availability of loan facility/financing on the other has lead to an increase in motorization in the country and almost 70 per cent of our on-the-road vehicles have outlived their life span and emit un-burnt monoxide gases.
In fact, the total number of vehicles in Pakistan emits more noxious fumes in the air as compared to all vehicles in the US. Finally, rapid expansions in the industrial sectors have caused the industrial and residential areas to merge causing health hazards for the population. It may be noted that HIV/AIDS is the number one population concern in both the developed and developing regions followed by infant and child mortality and maternal mortality in developing regions and population aging in developed regions.
While high fertility is a major concern of developing regions the low fertility carries the same weight for developed ones. While mortality has been decreasing and fertility has shown a significant decline over the recent years, the crude death rate (CDR) of Pakistan is estimated at 8.2 (per thousand) in 2005-06.
In Pakistan, decline in mortality rate is due to the elimination of epidemic diseases and improvement in medical services. Despite a considerable decline in the total mortality in Pakistan, infant mortality has still remained high at 77 per thousand live births in2005.
The major reasons for this high rate of infant and child mortality are diarrhea and pneumonia. Maternal mortality ratio ranges from 350-400 per hundred thousand births per year leading to about seventeen thousand new born babies being born motherless.
The Economic Survey revealed that the government has taken several steps to control the high growth rate of population, included: Mobile service units for covering the far flung villages having no access to family planning services; Expansion in service delivery through family welfare centers and reproductive health service centers in the public and private sectors for provision of contraceptive surgery; Effective and increased involvement of all health outlets in the public and private sectors by providing training/refresher courses, basic equipment, IEC material, sign boards and regular supply of contraceptives to paramedics.
The government also introduced family planning and MCH services in Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) adjoining the NWFP through their health infrastructure; Reinforcement of family planning and Mother and Child Health services in the Azad State of Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) and the Northern Areas and many others.—INP