Rallies, meetings mark the day

Population explosion is hampering development, Kadapa District Collector V. Anil Kumar said on Wednesday. Speaking after flagging off the 23rd World Population Day rally by nursing students and school students from Kadapa Collectorate to the Zilla Parishad office, he called for awareness among people on the ill-effects of unbridled population growth, such as paucity of water, food, housing, education, health and employment. In a meeting organised by Medical and Health Department later in the ZP conference hall, Regional Director Anand said the country’s population which was 36 crores at the time of Independence rapidly grew to 120 crores and at this rate, food, clothing and shelter would become scarce. Population growth due to lack of awareness and sentimental reasons as hampering development, Mr. Anand said.

Kadapa DMHO K. Prabhudas said population control would be possible by promoting literacy of women. India was the first nation to introduce family planning measures and it should be widely propagated among the people. Kadapa DEO Anjaiah, Additional DMHO Sulochana and RIMS Principal Balakrishna also spoke.

Rally in Nellore

Nellore Staff Reporter adds: Placards with slogans for population control marked the rally taken out by school students in Nellore to mark the World Population Day. The District Medical and Health Department in association with various schools organised the programmes.

DM&HO Masila Mani and other officials were present.

The rally was taken out from ABM Compound to the VRC Centre. Several programmes were organised at the Town Hall later. Children also took part in the dramas performed on the occasion, which mainly focused on the need for population control.

Ponnam’s appeal

Karimnagar Staff Reporter adds: MP Ponnam Prabhakar has called upon people to adopt small family norms to check ever increasing population menace in the country.

Speaking at the World Population day celebrations here on Wednesday, he urged upon the medical fraternity to educate the rural masses about the importance of family planning norms. He expressed concern over declining girl child population in the country.

Jagtial legislator L Ramana said that the development would be possible only through small family norms with the reduction of population. Collector Smita Sabharwal said that the population growth rate in the district was 9.16 per cent and urged upon the medical teams and others to reduce the growth rate to 2 to 3 per cent in the coming five years.

On this occasion, the dignitaries have felicitated best performing doctors, nurses and the PHCs. Additional Joint Collector Sunder Abner, DM&HO Nageshwara Rao and others were also present.

‘Shun child marriages’

Nalgonda Correspondent adds: More Plan resources were being spent on areas with low population growth and that child marriages were one of the causes of population growth, observed Collector N. Mukteswara Rao here on Wednesday.

He was addressing a meeting organised to mark the World Population Day.h.

Nalgonda MP G. Sukender Reddy advised NGOs to carry out educative campaigns on how high population increases poverty rate. Some staffers of the Health department were feted.Earlier, RDO Padmakar and DHMO Amos flagged off a rally of school students from Clock Tower.