Pakistan, July 1 -- Prime Minister, Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif, on Tuesday, stressed that maintaining a balance between population and available resources was essential for sustainable development, saying that rapid population growth was placing increasing pressure on national resources and posing a major challenge to the country's progress.

Chairing a high-level meeting on population welfare, the prime minister said that population planning must be aligned with the national development, economic stability and the improvement of human resources, PM Office Media Wing said in a press release.

He directed the authorities to convene the inaugural meeting of the National Population Council at the earliest and asked that its organizational struc...