Inadequate population control programmes

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RECENTLY the World Population Day was observed in our country like elsewhere of the globe. Being a populous country, we have given special attention to the observance of the day than many other countries. As the day's significance in Bangladesh context is unprecedented, many organisations, taking this into account, organised programmes this year like previous years, highlighting different aspects of population control.
Still it seems to many of us nowadays that observance of the World Population Day is centered within the day like many other days. The population control programmes that were highlighted on this day are however found absent on other days. This is desirable for our better future.
Population is claimed is our resource. But for having many limitations including space constraints, we are facing a real hardship to balance our national resources with the growth of population. We are not able to meet the basic needs for entire population and this causes for our failure to alleviate poverty, remove health hazards and control high mortality rates of mother and children, unemployment, economic backwardness, environmental threat etc.
Despite these realities, it has been found that family planning programme, reproductive health issues etc., which were once used to get the highest importance in the media or rural programmes are now absent. The focus once given declaring population as number one problem is also not found because of reasons unknown. But we cannot confine our population control programmes to centering a day or month. These programmes need to continue without break -- for every day for many years. So we expect that the government should revive population-related programmes giving due importance on different aspects and make our population growth desirable to the need of the nation.
Shamsul Alam
Mohakhali, Dhaka