As 145 districts in country's seven States reporting high fertility rate continue to throw spanner on Government's efforts to curb population explosion, a focused Central campaign 'Mission Parivar Vikas' is in the pipeline envisaging high-quality family planning services in these region.
These districts of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Assam have total fertility rate (TFR) of over three per cent against the national 2.1 per cent and constitute nearly 50 per cent of the country's population.
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.
A senior official in the Union Health Ministry said that the main objective of the mission, to be launched soon will be to accelerate access to high quality family planning choices based on information, reliable services and supplies within a rights-based framework.
"The 145 districts have been identified based on total fertility rate and service delivery (post-partum contraceptives PPIUCD and Sterilisation performance) for immediate, special and accelerated efforts to reach the replacement level fertility goals of 2.1 by 2025," he said.
However, the Government has tough task at its hand.
Some of the States with high fertility rates also have some of the highest incidents of early marriage of women under 18 years of age. According to the National Family Health Survey (NFHS 4) 2016, released in January in Bihar 39 per cent of the women in the 20-24 years age group were married before 18 and in Madhya Pradesh the figure stood at 30 per cent. The statistics for Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan were not
available.
While some of the indicators, such as those of early marriage, improved between NFHS 3 and 4, the use of family planning methods has declined in states such as Bihar (use of modern methods declined from 29 per cent in NFHS 3 to 23 per cent in NFHS 4) and Madhya Pradesh (use of modern methods dipped from 53 per cent in NFHS 3 to 49 per cent in NFHS 4).
Poonam Muttreja, Executive Director, Population Foundation of India said, "we believe as a result of high unmet need among adolescent and young couples, the public health system should cater actively to adolescent and young people's contraceptive needs."
Programmes such as Rashtriya Kishor Swasthya Karyakram (RKSK) should be integrated with family planning programmes for a sustained health outcome and a positive behaviour change in the family planning arena, she added.