With total fertility rate (TFR) in 146 districts, most of them being in empowered action group (EAG) States continuing to be on the higher side — above 3 — the Modi Government may soon carry out micro-planning of such regions to implement specific family planning services, as is presently being done in the neighbouring Nepal.
Micro-planning is a situation analysis that helps to identify issues, gaps, weakness and strengths in family planning (FP) programme and make context specific response plans.
“The TFR in 23 districts of the country is above 4 per cent -11 from UP, 8 from Bihar and 2 each from Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. We have to put a special focus on these districts. There are 123 districts ranging in seven States, where the TFR is between 3-3.9 per cent,” Health Minister JP Nadda said at a national workshop on “Jimmedari Nibhao, Plan Banao” on World Population Day here.
“So these 123 plus 23 districts need to be strategised and focussed on. I would suggest we should go for micro-planning of every district and find out the reasons. If we find out the reasons, we will be able to address it. We cannot generalise,” he said.
TFR is the average number of children expected to be born per woman during her entire span of reproductive period and India has a TFR target of 2.1 per cent.
“Every district has its own peculiarity. So a micro- planning is needed. In the next 2-3 months, if we are able to strategise this and we start addressing that way, next year when we meet on population day, we will have an answer,” Nadda said.
Noting that there has been a reduction in the participation of males in family planning, he said that the reasons for this should be analysed.
MoS for Health Anupriya Patel said there is thought process in the country that a family should have a male child and this was a “grassroot issue plaguing it,” while her colleague Faggan Singh Kulaste pointed out that given the pace of population growth, India will surpass China, hence appropriate measures for population stabilisation are needed.