Dhaka, Jul 10 (UNB) - Health and Family Welfare Minister AFM Ruhal Haque on Saturday called for united efforts to control the rising population considering the country’s limited resources and also to contribute in the development, planning each birth in well-calculated manner.

“Let us popularize and establish the slogan `no more than two children, one is better’,” he said at a press briefing marking the World Population Day 2010 at the conference room of Health Ministry.

The Health Minister also urged the countrymen to play a responsible role from their respective position for building a healthy nation with a safe future.

“We’ve to consider with due emphasis that population of Bangladesh nearly doubled within 39 years after the country’s independence… the huge pressure of population is making all development efforts sluggish,” he said.

Ruhal Haque emphasized increasing the number of users of family planning methods with a view to decreasing the rate of fertility. “If fertility rate decreases, population growth will decline and the
undesirable mother and child mortality rate will decrease,” he said.

He mentioned that it has not been possible to bring all newly-wed couples in the country under family planning - mostly the extreme poor from both urban and rural areas.

The Health Minister said it’s very important that urgent measures are taken to reach the family planning services to all new couples - poor and illiterate.

About the main theme of the World Population Day: ‘Everyone Counts’, he said in the context of Bangladesh it means every birth should be planned.