Giving this information in the Lok Sabha the Minister of State for Health & Family Welfare, Mrs Panabaaka Lakshmi, said better performing 15 States/UTs, which constitute about 44 per cent of the population in 2001, have already achieved the replacement level TFR of 2.1.  Ten states, which constitute about 14 per cent of the population, are hopeful of achieving the replacement level in the near future as they have attained TFR between 2.4 and 2.9 by 2010.  Remaining States/UTs namely, Bihar, Uttarakhand, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Meghalaya, Tripura and Dadra & Nagar Haveli, which constitute about 42 per cent of the total population, may take longer period to achieve this goal.

India was the first country globally in 1952 to launch Family Planning programme, emphasizing fertility regulation for reducing birth rates to stabilize the population at a level consistent with the requirement of national economy.  During the seventies, the family planning programme was focused mainly on terminal methods and the programme received a set back due to the rigid implementation of a target based approach.

Since April 1, 1996, the ‘Target Free Approach’ has been adopted all over India with a focus on decentralized participatory planning.  Under this new approach, attention is being paid to enlarging family welfare services and ensuring community participation at the grass-root level.  The family welfare programme is now fully voluntary and the main effort of the Government has been to provide service and to encourage the citizens by information, education and communication to use such services.  It gives choice to the couple to adopt the size of their family by adopting the family welfare methods best suited to them.

The Government is providing central assistance to the States/UTs under NRHM and second phase of Reproductive and Child Health (RCH-II) programme for implementation of various family welfare activities to achieve population stabilization in the country.  Under the NRHM emphasis has been laid to provide accessible, affordable, accountable, effective, reliable and quality primary healthcare through creation of a cadre of Accredited Social Health Activities (ASHA), improved hospital care, decentralization of programme to district level to improve intra and inter-sectoral convergence and effective utilization of resources.

As a part of NRHM, fixed day services both for terminal and spacing methods of family planning in all the upgraded Primary Health Centres, Community Health Centres, District Hospitals and Sub-District Hospital has been taken up in all the States/UTs.  The enhanced package of compensation for loss of ages to persons who undergo sterilization has been introduced since September 2007.

The Government has also launched a Family Planning (indemnity) Insurance Scheme since November 2005, to provide insurance cover to acceptors of sterilization across the country and also provides indemnity insurance cover to doctors/health facilities including private accredited facilities, as an effort towards encouraging adoption of sterilization by eligible couples and giving protection to the service providers.

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