Pakistan turns to contraceptives to slow birth rate

ISLAMABAD, Jan 11 (Reuters) Faced with the prospect of its population doubling to over 300 million people in the next 40 years, Pakistan today launched a project to promotecontraception in urban and industrial areas.

''This initiative has the potential for a major breakthrough in our efforts to bridge the gap between knowledge and practice in inculcating responsible parenthood,'' Population and Welfare Minister Chaudhry Shahbaz Hussain told reporters in Islamabad.

With 156 million people, according to the latest official estimates, Pakistan is the world's sixth most populous country, and it's getting bigger by 1.86 per cent a year.

The rate of increase has slowed in the past few decades but it is still too fast, the minister said, warning that at the current pace the population could double in 38 years.

The latest attempt to defuse the population explosion is focused on towns and cities where industries are concentrated, and will involve not only the provision of contraceptives and sex education material, but also the appointment of trained medical staff at factories.

''The aim is to encourage the predominantly male workforce of around 41 million in reproductive age group to adopt small family norms,'' Hussain said.

The ministry has also begun educating 12,000 Muslim clerics use their pulpits to spread the message on the benefits of having smaller families in a country where a quarter of the people live below the poverty line.

Pakistan introduced a family planning programme soon after its independence in 1947 but social taboos and opposition from strict Muslim groups limited its success.

''There was a time when you couldn't talk about family planning, but now things have changed and we are also bringing clerics on board,'' Hussain said.

REUTERS SB RN1842