BHUBANESWAR: Even as one out of every five married women in India wants to adopt family planning, they are unable to do so due to inaccessibility, ignorance and myths leading to alarming ground situations with too many early child births in a close gap, opined president of Family Planning Association of India (FPAI) Umesh Aradhya here on Saturday.
Addressing a media meet on ‘strengthening family planning services through increased budget allocation’, Aradhya said 59 per cent of births have interval of less than 36 months while 24 per cent births are third or more order and 6.3 per cent are in the age group of 15 to 19 years.
“These figures clearly indicate that the Governments both at the Centre and State need to increase budgetary allocation for family planning. There should be multiple contraceptive choices for men and women by introducing more modern spacing methods. The male sterilisation merely stands at 2.3 per cent which needs to be increased,” he said.
FPAI general secretary Kalpana Apte said if Government figures are to be believed, 21 per cent Indians do not have access to family planning. “It is not just about controlling population, but it saves lives of thousands of women annually. More people should be included in the programme by counselling, creating awareness on its positive impacts and making more budgetary allocation,” she observed.
Speaking on the occasion, former Information Commissioner Jagadananda said since proper and regular healthcare services are still a far cry in tribal dominated areas, they are reluctant for family planning because they are unsure whether their children will survive.
“Though the Centre has increased budgetary allocation from `634 crore to `2700 crore for maternity benefit programme and `175 crore to `1500 crore for national nutrition programme, it hardly meets the requirement,” he pointed out. Additional Director (family planning) Dr Basudev Patra, former directors Dr Seba Mohapatra, Dr Nirmala Dei and Bhubaneswar branch president of FPAI Rajeswar Hota also spoke.