Population stabilisation: intervention strategies
Health for the millions 23(5-6): 46-47
1997
ISSN/ISBN: 0970-8685 PMID: 12293895 Document Number: 275550
This article discusses family planning (FP) program failures, the need for a paradigm change, and new interventions and recommendations. India has failed to significantly change the pattern of population growth. The FP program has failed due to its inability to eliminate illiteracy, to meet the minimum needs of the people, and to communicate with people effectively about health and FP. Four states in India have a particularly serious problem with rapid population growth: Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Bihar states, which have 40% of total population and 48% of total illiterate population. In 1993, the Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare appointed a group (Swaminathan Committee) to draft a population policy. The 1994 draft policy emphasized balancing population with the carrying capacity of available land and water supplies; decentralizing; and fulfilling the needs of the people. A new agency was to be formed: the Population and Social Development Commission. A new financing unit was to be established: the Population and Social Development Fund. The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare was to be restructured. The draft program suggested the integration of FP with maternal and child health care and immunization. In 1996, the Department of Family Welfare offered a Statement that ignored many of the provisions of the Swaminathan Committee, but did include the elimination of targets and the promotion of the 2-child family norm. It is recommended that the 1996 Policy Statement be ignored and the Swaminathan Committee draft policy be resurrected.