KARACHI, Dec 4: Caretaker Minister for Population Welfare and Women Development, Sindh, Nadira Panjwani has requested the chief minister to lift the ban on employment so that vacant posts of doctors, officers and other staff in her department could be filled.

According to official sources, the minister made the request after realising the difficulties her department was facing due to a lack of manpower.

She called for addressing the problem on a priority basis, said an official.

About 1,400 posts, 90 of them for doctors, are lying vacant in the department.

Meanwhile, Ms Panjwani was informed at a departmental briefing that population growth rate in Sindh stood at 2.3 per cent and the situation had to be look into seriously.

In her recent meeting with a delegation of retired federal secretaries once associated with the population welfare and health sectors, the minister had stressed the need for studying the strategies of countries like Iran, Bangladesh, Indonesia and certain other Muslim countries which have successfully implemented their policies on pupation welfare and family planning.

She called for public mobilisation in this regard.