Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, while at a seminar on the need of population control and development in the field of health at the Bihar Assembly in Patna on Saturday urged the legislators to go to their respective constituencies and educate the people of the advantage of small family and population control.
"You have the power to influence people. You should go back and try to convince men and women to practice the principles of small family," Kumar said.
The seminar was jointly sponsored by the state Assembly and the Population Foundation of India (PFI).
The Chief Minister said that for an overall growth of the mankind, development in the field of health and education was of prime importance. Citing the example of Nalanda district, Kumar's home base, the Chief Minister said that Nalanda had registered the lowest birth rate in the state in last several years and that model should be followed by other districts as well.
"The rule of two children per family should first be adopted by the law-makers. Only then it will trickle down to the grassroots of the society," Kumar said.
State Health Minister Chandramohan Rai also emphasized the need for check on population explosion. "All of our efforts to bring development in the state is a waste of time if population could not be checked in Bihar. Everything is dependent on it," Rai said.
Rai further said that the NDA government was soon going to hire 3,000 doctors and over 10,000 health professionals to bring an improvement in the area of health. "Specialists are being appointed at all first-aid centers and all district hospitals are being equipped with Intensive Care Unit (ICU) to handle patients more effectively," the Health Minister said.
Others who spoke on the occasion included Bihar Assembly Speaker Udai Narayan Chowdhary, Energy Minister Vijendra Yadav, PFI official A. R. Nanda, and a number of eminent health officials.
From: (patnadaily.com)
