Family planning: a major public health programme in India
Datta, S.
Journal of the Royal Institute of Public Health and Hygiene 31: 7-21
1968
PMID: 12305301 Document Number: 519748
India's increase of 12 million people each year nullifies almost all the considerable progress the country made in agriculture and industrial production during 19 years of her freedom. Today she ranks 2nd in population and 7th in land area of the world. She claims 15% of the world's population, on about 2.4% of the world's land area. The Government of India has taken family planning as a major national health program under her Five-Year Plans, but impact of this program is not felt as yet. Since this is a difficult complex problem with many facets, it has to be attacked forcefully, drastically, and on all fronts. An all-out war has to be waged against the population growth. India should attack it with all the weapons she had: education, propaganda, taxation, legalization of abortion, and even compulsory sterilization. Overnight change in the fertility pattern of the people is impossible.