'Everyone Counts', but India needs to stabilise its population
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The theme for this year’s World Population Day is ‘Everyone Counts’, underscoring the importance of data for development. It is estimated that every year India adds the population of Australia to its already staggering 116.1 crore population. The Indian government feels it’s time to stabilise
The Indian government is attempting to bring incentive-based family planning back into focus as the country stands poised to eclipse China as the most populous country in the world, and yet another World Population Day comes around on July 11.
Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare Ghulam Nabi Azad will lead the charge as he flags off a run for population stabilisation involving 3,000 children from schools in Delhi, on Sunday. The run is being organised by Jansankhya Sthirtha Kosh in partnership with the Delhi government.
The theme of World Population Day this year is ‘Everyone Counts’, underscoring the importance of data for development. The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in its press release stated: ‘Counting everyone is an integral part of ensuring that we take everyone into account. Good demographic data is critical for planning schools, health systems and public transportation, for designing policies based on future population projections, for monitoring the effectiveness of service delivery and much more.’
The government is viewing this as an excellent opportunity for spreading awareness and advocacy on the issue of population stabilisation. While the first attempt, three decades ago, ran into trouble, there is a growing realisation now that, if unchecked, India’s population trends would negate any attempt at sustainable development.
The hushed closed-door questions about contraception and ham-handed fertility advice from know-it-all relatives will soon have to give way to modern birth control methods if India’s population is to stabilise.
Following the controversy generated by the 1970s sterilisation programme implemented by the Indira Gandhi government, the Family Planning Programme was renamed the National Population Control Programme. A National Population Stabilisation Fund (PSF) or Jansankhya Stirtha Kosh was formed in 2006, though sterilisation remains a touchy subject.
The Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has selected Assam to launch the single-window family planning scheme, considering its high population growth for the year 2010-11. All primary health centres and district hospitals in the state will be equipped with facilities and manpower to conduct no-scalpel vasectomies, tubectomies and other surgical procedures. Hospitals will also have health counsellors offering advice and suggestions to couples on ways to adopt birth control procedures according to their convenience and circumstances.
State trainer-cum-nodal officer for male and female sterilisation programmes, Ilias Ali, said the single-window family planning facility is a new concept being implemented in a few states, including Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, to curb massive population growth. Assam has set a target of 1 lakh women and 25,000 men for sterilisation procedures, for the current year.
It’s a small beginning for a country that has nearly 1.1 billion people and is on course to overtake China and emerge as the most populous country on earth. A large rural population is a recipe for future disaster; the same goes for big cities. There are millions of people living in slums and on the streets of cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, etc. Most of them do not have access to clean water and electricity.
Experts believe the undoing of India’s population stabilisation measures are two states -- Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. According to the health ministry, only half of Indian states, that is 14, will have achieved the Millennium Development Goal of two children per mother, by 2015. An average Indian woman has a total fertility rate (TFR) of 2.68 -- meaning, she is likely to have three children during her childbearing years. In Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, that number is four.
Southern states, especially Andhra Pradesh, are an exception, considered “global models” for their efforts at population control.
“Even Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan have managed to bring down fertility rates. (On the other hand), a woman born in Uttar Pradesh or Bihar is likely to have four children, be uneducated and likely to die during childbirth. Family planning cannot be an isolated cause anymore. Larger families are a result of illiteracy, lack of access to healthcare, and it affects maternal and child health. We are now devising policies keeping in mind all these factors,” says Dr Amarjit Singh, Executive Director, PSF.
For the first time, the government has also roped in private practitioners as part of its population control measures. This is a departure from the usual mistrust between government and private doctors.
The concerns though remain. The failure of the ambitious National Population Policy-2000 to strategise a gradual reduction in population growth is seen as a major setback. NPP-2000, which set national socio-demographic goals for the year 2010, stated that if its strategies were implemented, India’s population, which is projected to be 116 crore by 2010, could be capped at 110 crore.
However, in 2008, the population had touched 113 crore, according to figures given out by the National Commission on Population. This was 5 crore more than the average projection population.
Source: The Indian Express, July 9, 2010
The Telegraph, July 5, 2010
Press Information Bureau, July 2010