The death of 13 women at a State-run sterilisation camp in Chhattisgarh last month has cast a shadow on the Government’s population stabilising campaign in the country.
Officials from the Union Health Ministry admit that the number of people, particularly female participants, in the Government’s sterilisation programme will be low this fiscal. So far till November 2014, the number of women undergoing sterilisation process was a meager 12 lakh. With such a pace, the Chhattisgarh sterilisation camp tragedy apart, the number is not likely to even match the last year’s (2013-14) number of 41.22 lakh.
“We were expecting this number to at least reach to 20 lakh by the end of this fiscal. But the Chhattisgarh sterilisation botch-up will now deter people from considering registering with the programme. We are already getting such information from the States that people are reluctant to attend the sterilisation campaigns,” said a senior Health Ministry official.
The official said States adjoining Chhattisgarh such as Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar might witness low female participation. It is a cause of concern given that these States are the one where population is high and the Ministry is making all efforts to popularise the family planning measures. “Organising sterilisation camps is one of them,” he said.
In the first nine months i.e., till September 2014, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Uttar Pradesh have reported 13,862, 62,975, 23,371 and 37,059 number of women undergoing sterilisation process respectively. The deaths of women in the sterilisation programme in Chhattisgarh last month is just one of many such episodes in the country.
According to the data tabled in Parliament by the Health Ministry, last year more than 162 women died due to such vasectomy operations across the country in Government-run campaigns. Tamil Nadu reported deaths of 30 women while around 23 women lost their lives in Maharashtra. In Andhra Pradesh and Bihar, 20 and 17 women respectively died during such operations. In Madhya Pradesh, around 13 women lost their lives. Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand reported the death of four women each while in Haryana, three women died during such operations in Government-run hospitals.
In fact the number of women participating in the sterilisation programme in the past three years has come down drastically. While it was 47 lakhs in 2011-12, it declined to 44.47 lakh in the following year.