Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Population Welfare Department on the directive of the provincial government has started training of 3000 ulema/clerics as part of its awareness campaign to bring down population growth rate from 2.8 percent to 1.8 percent by 2025.
Director KP Population Welfare Department , Faridullah Khan said that the role of clerics is of vital importance for creating awareness on family planning and convincing people.
He said that initially 200 clerics have been imparted training to become a master trainers under the awareness program started with the collaboration with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA)
He said that these trained clerics would give further training at grass-roots level in every tehsil across the province.
The department will set up over 200 Family Welfare Centres with an estimated cost of Rs. 858 million for which hiring of staff has been started, adding 120 centres would be set up in merged districts by year 2030.
He informed that around 769,000 people were provided family planning facilities in the year 2020-21 along with medical treatment given to over 300,000 people.
The Population Welfare Department planned to establish 320 family welfare centres to reduce growth rate to 1.7 by 2030.