Evaluation of Family Planning Program in India
Family planning was adopted as a national program in India in the year 1952. This policy was started in the country from the first five year plan itself, but it could be implemented effectively only after the fourth five year plan. This policy was successful to some extent in fulfillment of its objectives and failed to some extent.
Therefore, it is necessary to evaluate this policy and find out the reasons for the failure and suggest ways to resolve it. 138 Successes of the Program This program implemented in the country since the Five Year Plan has been successful in many respects.
The following things can be said in favor of the success of this program
1. India is the first country in the world to adopt the family planning program as a national program in 1952. In the first and second five year plans, the family planning program was adopted at a simple level. At that time, importance was given to research, publicity and providing clinic facilities. But later the government paid special attention to this program and continuously increased the expenditure on it. In this program, qualitative aspects like maternal-child health, diet, women’s welfare and education etc. have also been taken.
2. Today, due to the efforts made in various schemes, adequate development of family planning has taken place in the country. At present, not only in the cities but also in the villages, there are family planning centers equipped with all modern equipment, where work is done by scientific and high technical method. These centers give proper advice and guidance regarding various measures related to family planning. Apart from this, many training and research centers have also been established in the country.
3. This program has been successful in creating awareness about the small family in the minds of the people by continuous publicity, dissemination. Today, whether rich or poor, educated or uneducated, all have started to understand the importance of a small family. Today many states have been successful in reducing their birth and death rates to some extent.
4. An attempt was made to bring down the birth rate in the country by bringing reproducible couples under the ambit of family planning through the family planning program. In the whole country 18.9% in 1976, 22.7% in 1981, 34.9% in 1986, 43.3% in 1990 and 43.5% in 1992 were brought under family planning. In the same years, 14.1%, 20%, 26.5%, 31.1% and 30.3% of these couples, respectively, adopted neutering.
The progress of family welfare program in India from the year 1970-71 to 2001-2002 is given in the following table.
1. vasectomy 2. male vasectomy 3. female vasectomy 4. IUD 0 5. conventional contraception 6. abortion 7. Reproducible (15-44 years old). Number of couples 8. Percentage of married couples 9. Number of births prevented in the year. 10. Cumulative number of births prevented
Thus, as a result of the success of the family planning program, the birth rate and death rate in the country, which were 43 per thousand and 31 per thousand respectively at the time of implementation of family planning program, have fallen to 25.0 per thousand and 8.1 per thousand respectively. .
program failures
Family planning in India has not been successful as expected. Its achievements have always lagged behind its goals. In fact, the attributed births cannot be attributed to the family planning program alone.
Many social, economic and cultural factors are responsible for this. The family planning program failed to achieve its goals. In the Fourth Five Year Plan itself, the target of reducing the birth rate to 32 per thousand and to 25 per thousand by 1978 could not be achieved.
Thus, in the Seventh Plan the target was set to reduce the birth rate to 29.1 per thousand and in the Eighth Plan to 26.0 per thousand, whereas the actual birth rate in the same plans was 30.2 per thousand and 27 per thousand respectively. In this way, the goals of many methods of birth control could not be met. In the Sixth Plan the target was 24 million vasectomy but the achievement was 17 million.
The target of sterilization in the Seventh Five Year Plan was 31 million whereas only 23.7 million people could be sterilized. Similarly, only 4.7 million people were sterilized in 2001-02. The couple protection rate remained in line with the targets but the actual characters were not selected for this. Most of the selected individuals belonged to the upper age group who were nearing the completion of their reproductive period. In fact, young couples should be brought under couple protection.
In India, there is a legal provision to increase the age of marriage to reduce the reproductive age, yet most of the marriages are taking place below the prescribed age, which gives the couple more time to reproduce.
The family planning program failed to check this. Due to failure The success of family planning depends on the interest of the public. This program cannot be successful until it takes the form of a movement.
As long as the majority of the people of the country, who are economically and educationally backward, affected by social and religious stereotypes, suffering from various diseases and suffering from high infant mortality and malnutrition, until their condition will not be improved. Till then family planning work
The success of the program will be doubtful. The family planning program is not reaching many parts of the country due to lack of infrastructure facilities, adequate publicity and dissemination and lack of adequate information and education system to the public.
Apart from this, it is not being used due to lack of trained personnel. In India, the facilities being provided by the government in this regard are still inadequate. According to the perception towards family planning of the people of every community, class and sect spread in every corner of the country, measures have not been suggested to motivate them towards small family. People do not have enough knowledge about family planning.