MoS Health backs current National Population Policy, lists govt's initiatives in Lok Sabha

Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare Bharti Pravin Pawar has backed the current National Population Policy and categorically denied plans of the Centre to introduce a new policy to check the country's population growth. Dr. Bharati Pravin Pawar on Friday said that the government had been already implementing National Family Planning Program through a target-free approach to check population growth in the country. Issuing details on the National Population Policy formulated in 2000 to attain stability in population growth by 2045, the Union Minister explained various initiatives taken up by the government and their outcomes during the past two decades.

Responding to a question regarding the government’s take on the population policy, Dr. Bharati Pravin Pawar in a written reply informed the Lok Sabha that the country has been yielding positive results from the policy intact. Further explaining her argument, the MoS cited a report of the Technical Group on Population Projections (TGPP) dated July 2020, which projected details regarding the same. According to the study, the projected population percentage growth in the last five years have constantly been on the decline. They showed that the percentage growth fell from 1.11 in 2016-17 to 1.08 by 2019-20. The study also showed that most states also recorded a decline in the growth percentage.

Initiatives taken under National Family Planning Program

The Minister also listed the initiatives of the Centre under the National Family Planning Program to control India's overall fertility rate. According to the statement, these initiatives helped stabilize the population growth in the last five years. The list included:

• Mission Parivar Vikas: Introduced for substantially increasing access to contraceptives and family planning services in 146 high fertility districts in 7 high focus states.
• Expanded Contraceptive Choices: The current contraceptive basket has been expanded with the inclusion of new contraceptives namely Injectable contraceptive (Antara programme) and Cent chroman (Chhaya).
• Post-partum Intrauterine contraceptive device (PPIUCD) incentive scheme: Avails PPIUCD services post-delivery.
• Redesigned Contraceptive Packaging: The packaging for Condoms, OCPs, and ECPs has now been improved and redesigned so as to augment the demand for these commodities.
• Family Planning Media Campaign: A holistic media campaign is in place to generate contraceptive demand.

Apart from these schemes, the Ministry also noted that the government observes World Population Day & fortnight (July 11 – July 24) each year to boost Family Planning efforts all over the country. It also pointed out the observing of Vasectomy fortnight which lays emphasis on male participation. The Ministry also informed that the government had also taken up a scheme for Home Delivery of contraceptives by ASHAs at the doorstep of beneficiaries.

National Family Planning Programme successful: MoS

Emphasising the result yielded from the National Family Planning Programme, the minister informed that the country's total fertility rate has declined from 2.9 in 2005 to 2.2 in 2018. The statement informed that 28 out of 36 States/UTs have already achieved the replacement level fertility of 2.1 or less and the Crude Birth Rate (CBR) has declined from 23.8 in 2005 to 20.0 in 2018. The ministry claimed that the decadal growth rate has declined from 21.54% in 1990-2000 to 17.64% during 2001-11 and the wanted fertility rate has declined from 1.9 in NFHS III to 1.8 in NFHS IV.

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