Due to failure by successive governments, over 23 lakh ‘unwanted births’ happened.
New Delhi: As demand for a stringent law to check the menace of population explosion increases, it has come to light that the population control programmes, undertaken by successive governments, virtually flopped despite spending more than Rs 20 lakh crore in the last about four decades. As a result of this failure, more than 23 lakh “unwanted children” are born every year in the country, as per official estimates. This is the figure, besides the cases of abortions which take place annually. However, this figure is almost double, as per a survey conducted by a private agency.
According to government’s own admission, more than Rs 2 lakh crore was spent from 1974 to 2015 on different family planning/ family welfare programmes. However, if the spending during the period in the last three years is taken into account, it comes to about Rs 2.5 lakh crore. According to experts, in real terms, taking into consideration the current value of the rupee, the amount comes to about Rs 20 lakh crore. As a result of this failure, the population of India increased from 56 crore in 1971 to 130 crore at present, which is more than double. Moreover, more and more “unwanted children” are born every year.
The latest NFHS-4 (National Family Health Survey), which is the most credible survey conducted by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on issues related to health, reveals that about 13% of couples fall under the category of “unmet need for contraceptive service”. The “unmet need” for contraception is measured as the proportion of women considered fertile who want to postpone their next birth or stop childbearing altogether, but are not using contraception. It also includes those women who have an “unwanted” current pregnancy and whose last birth was “mistimed” or “unwanted”.
According to Purushottam M. Kulkarni, a retired professor of Centre for the Study of Regional Development, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), an immediate implication of the “unmet need” for contraception is that there are “unwanted” births.
“The NFHS-4 has asked questions on whether the last birth was wanted at the time, wanted later or not wanted at all. The date shows that out of the births during the three-year period before the survey, 91% were wanted then, 4.6% were wanted later, and 4.5% were not wanted at all. Thus, 9% of the births were not wanted at the time. For a country as a whole, this is a very large number, about 2.3 million (23 lakh) births per year. In Uttar Pradesh alone, over 8 lakh births were “unwanted” and in Bihar, over 3 lakh. Moreover, as many women may not report a birth as “unwanted” once it has occurred, since such a response may be considered inappropriate, the actual number would higher than this.”
The government estimate puts the number of “unwanted births” at 23 lakh per year. According to a report of “Family Planning 2020”, a global partnership of several countries, including India, and supported by the United Nations, the number of unintended pregnancies in India was 45.71 lakh in 2013.
It says that one in five Indian women in reproductive age do not want to get pregnant, but have no access to modern contraception, and the figure rises to one in four in the 15-19 year age-group. The report also says that India has a very high rate of female sterilisation as the most preferred tool of family planning and it accounts for 65.7 % of all contraceptions compared to a measly 2% of male sterilisation.
However, according to Kulkarni, though there has been a decline in the “unmet need” for contraceptive services from 1992-93 (NFHS-1) through to 2005-2006 (NFHS-3), there has not been any significant improvement to access to contraception from 2005-2006 to 2015-16 (NFHS-4). Interestingly, while states like Bihar, UP, Nagaland and Meghalaya have higher the “unmet need” (over 25%), states likes West Bengal, Punjab, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana have significantly lower unmet need (less than 8%). According to him, India’s the “unmet need” for contraception is a public health service failing.
Speaking to The Sunday Guardian, Kulkarni, however, said the fertility rate (presently about 2.2 births per woman in her lifetime), has declined which is a matter of satisfaction. But there appears to be no change in the unmet need for contraception.
“Any government programme has two aspects —motivational part and service part. While there appears to be a lack of motivation as far as use of contraceptive is concerned, the service part is also inadequate. There is clearly a service deficit. The family planning programme is inadequate as it has failed to address this issue,” he said.
Family planning programmes in India began in the early 1950s. But it was a low key affair at that time. However, the 1990s brought in major changes in the situation and in the public and government mood. Strong need was felt to implement family planning programmes more efficiently. But the results were not good.
According to statistics provided by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, while the number of grassroots level female health workers, known as ANMs (auxiliary nurse midwives) in position at health sub-centres and primary health centres, increased substantially after 2005, the number of male health workers actually declined. In 2016, nearly half of the sub-centres did not have even one male worker. There were several other flaws in the government programmes which lacked political will and motivation. As a result, the family planning programmes did not have the desired results.