He called upon government, non-government and voluntary organisations as well as the people of all walks of life to help attain net reproductive rate (NRR) of 1 by 2010.

He made the call while he was inaugurating a programme jointly organised by the Department of Family Planning and UNFPA at the Osmani Memorial Auditorium, marking the World Population Day 2007.

The theme of this year's World Population Day is "Men as Partners in Maternal Health".

Fakhruddin said Bangladesh is one of the densely-populated countries in the world with over 14 crore people. Over 900 people are now living in every one sqkm area.

He said the population growth in Bangladesh is still very high and if it is not controlled sustainable development and social stability of the country will be at stake.

"If the population boom cannot be controlled, there will be huge pressure on this small country having limited resources. The standard of life will fall, employment opportunities will get reduced and arable and forest lands will decrease rapidly," he told the function.

The chief adviser further said meeting the demand of food, housing, education and health services would become harder while the environment and ecology would be endangered if the current population growth cannot be checked.

He said many countries have reached the pinnacle of progress by keeping their population under control and utilising it properly. "We also want to march towards the same goal by turning our population into human resources," he added.

The chief adviser said prevention of the high maternal and child mortality rate is another big challenge in population control. Still, 3-4 mothers in 1,000 childbirth die in Bangladesh. "The rate of it in countries like China, Thailand and Sri Lanka is four to seven times lower," he said.

Referring to high child mortality rate, he said bringing all children under the expanded programme of immunisation is very important. The rate of full-fledged immunised children has been increased to 71 percent in 2006 from 51 percent in 1997.

Fakhruddin called upon the NGOs to supplement the government efforts to achieve the target of increasing the immunisation coverage to 90 percent by 2010.

Referring to this year's theme of the World Population Day, he said the matter is very important in a male-dominated society like ours where negligence, repression, violence and deprivation of women are too common.

"Husband's decision is very important in the case of reproductive health, pregnancy and family planning. The role of the father and the brother gets priority in childhood marriage, selecting a bridegroom, health services and other matters," he said.

The chief adviser said the rate of contraceptive acceptance by male is declining every year as it has come down to 10 percent or below from nearly 44 percent during 1985-86.

He said the government is pledged-bound to reach the family planning and health services to the doorsteps of the people and for that well coordination and combined efforts of NGOs and voluntary organisations along side the government ones are necessary.

He called for giving highest priority in implementing the Health Nutrition and Population sector programmes involving Tk 32,450 crore by 2010 for ensuring safe-motherhood, nursing adolescence reproductive health, and reduction of mother and child mortality rate.

The CA also urged all to carry out efforts to attain the target of increasing contraceptive prevalence to 72 percent by 2010 from the present 58 percent.

He also distributed prizes among the top recipients of seven categories for their contributions to family planning and nursing mother and child health in last one year in the country.

Health and Family Welfare Adviser Maj Gen (Retd) Dr ASM Matiur Rahman, DG of Family Planning Department Md Abdul Mannan and UNFPA country representative Arthur Erken also spoke at the function presided over by Health Secretary AKM Zafarullah Khan.

Advisers to the caretaker government, representatives from development partners, field-level family planning employees and NGO representatives were present at the function.