Despite improved quality of family planning services in the country, the use of family planning methods has disturbingly declined in empowered action group (EAG) States like Bihar and Madhya Pradesh as is evident from the data available from the national family health survey (NFHS ) 3 and 4.
The use of modern methods has declined from 29 per cent in a NFHS 3 to 23 per cent as per NFHS 4 and in Madhya Pradesh it came down from 53 per cent to 49 per cent during the said period.
This is a matter of concern, as India’s commitment to Family Planning 2020 goals largely depend on the efforts of States like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, experts say and called for priorities towards addressing the unmet needs of the country’s vast adolescent population.
Poonam Muttreja, Executive Director of The Population Foundation of India (PFI) said in keeping with the theme for the World Population Day ‘Investing in teenage girls’ being observed on Monday, chalking out a strategy to plan for creating suitable opportunities as well as avenues to meet their needs and aspirations, especially for girls and young women, must be a priority for the country.
“Investments in adolescent and young girls, especially teenage girls to influence their health outcome and consequently the overall wellbeing are an absolute necessity. This can be ensured by focusing on women’s empowerment and a right’s based approach to reproductive health to address the special and unmet needs of women and adolescent girls,” said Muttreja.
Girls constitute 47 per cent of India’s adolescent population (10-19 years) of around 250 million and 48 per cent of the 232 million young people in the age group of 15-24 years (Census 2011).
According to recently released National Family Health Survey — NFHS 4 (2016), social indicators, such as age at marriage, sex ratio at birth, child registration have improved over the last 10 years. However, few States need to make extra efforts in order to come at par with the national average.
The percentage of women aged 20-24 years married before the age of 18 years, remain high for Bihar (39 per cent), Madhya Pradesh (30 per cent) and West Bengal (41 per cent). Bihar and Andhra Pradesh have approximately 12 per cent of women (age 15-19 years) who were already mothers or pregnant at the time of survey.
Anemia among women aged 15-49 years remained high for Bihar (60 per cent), Haryana (63 per cent), Tamil Nadu (55 per cent), West Bengal (62 per cent) and Madhya Pradesh (52 per cent).
Muttreja stressed on improving quality of care and providing a wider basket of spacing methods to the youth, increasing financial investments and according a higher place in Government priorities towards addressing the unmet needs of the country’s vast adolescent population.