Kathmandu: Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli cautioned that human existence could be at risk if the population growth does not take place equally alongside development and prosperity.
He said so at a programme organized by the Ministry of Health and Population today to mark the World Population Day-2025 and to introduce the National Population Policy-2082 BS.
Emphasizing the need for development to align with population growth/demographic dividend, Oli stated that everyone should view childbearing as a responsibility towards the Earth.
“Every country has a meaning because of humans. As a human, we give meaning to the earth as well. If there were no population, there would not be country either,” the PM asserted, calling for suitable policies and timely action to protect the prosperous existence of human race.
He argued that human race is the most valuable source for creation and thus urged people to stop killing people for personal gain.
Hitting out at irony, he said, “Holding seminars on population while continuing to kill people by making weapons of mass destruction will endanger the existence of humankind.”
On a different note, PM Oli urged people not to be swayed by a song that suggests marrying and having three children within 30 years and enjoying life after 40.
The Septuagenarian leader, instead, encouraged one and all to get married on time as per the legal provisions that allows marriage only after 20 years.
Oli’s suggestion has a bearing with the decline in the country’s annual population growth rate which is currently 0.92 per cent as per the national census 2021. This rate is the lowest in the last 80 years, according to the National Statistic Office’s report unveiled later in 2024.
Furthermore, he expressed his concern that while spreading the public awareness to prevent begetting too many children, and added that it has led to the situation where people are not having children at all.
PM Oli asserted that since the population growth is negative even in the developed countries, it could affect the entire world and thereby threaten human existence.