Demography India Vol 29. Issue I, (2000)

From the Chief Editor’s Desk

The recent national population policy (NPP) is a significant step towards strengthening the family welfare programme in the country. It is an effort to broad base the programme from family welfare to reproductive and child health with utmost concern towards improving the quality. Indeed, the policy begins with the statement "The overriding objective of economic and social development is to improve the quality of lives that people lead, to enhance their well-being, and to provide them with opportunities and choices to become productive assets in society". The realization has dawned that population stabilization is not an end in itself but a means towards sustainable development.

It addresses the issue of providing education for both boys and girls, and shows concern about provision of basic amenities like safe drinking water, sanitation and housing and empowerment of women. The NPP reaffirms continuation of target-free approach (TFA) with provision of informed choice as well as good quality services. One feature of the policy is that it prepones the year of achievement of the goal to reduce TFR to replacement level by 2010.

After ICPD in 1994, there has been gradual shift in the programme towards implementation of the target free approach. Although it may be little early to evaluate the TFA approach, there are no indications to suggest that the quality of services and care has improved by any noticeable extent. According to the two rounds of NFHS, the use of modem temporary methods of family planning has either decreased or increased only marginally during the intersurvey period in 8 of the 14 major states. Except in Punjab, West Bengal and Assam, less than 10 percent of the couples were using any modem temporary method in the other states as revealed by the survey in 1998-99. The survey also shows that in a large majority of the cases, a user is neither told about other available methods by a motivator nor is she informed about side effects or other problems associated with the method being accepted.

For a long time the programme was geared towards achieving the targets. There is no doubt that it will require changing the mindset of all those involved in the programme at different levels to make it a demand driven, client centered and good quality programme. It will require sending clear guidelines to workers, taking care of their training needs and a complete change in the monitoring and supervision of the programme.

One laudable suggestion of NPP is to decentralize the implementation through panchayat. A variety of persons at the grass root level shall be mobilized to facilitate the integrated service delivery. It has been mentioned that" Each village should maintain a list of community midwives and trained birth attendants, village health guides, panchayat sewa sahayaks, primary school teachers and anganwadi workers who may be entrusted with various responsibilities in the implementation of integrated service delivery". One needs to deliberate as to how all these workers having allegiance to different agencies will work together for a common goal and what sort of problems in coordination will arise.

One lurking question is to what extent the programme can be implemented with the necessary thrust and whether the target free approach will make the goal of attainment of population stabilization difficult to realize. An emphasis on elimination of high-risk births can ease the situation while addressing several concerns of the new policy. Every effort needs to be made to ensure avoiding births to women at ages below 20. This will help in reducing the relatively high level of adolescent fertility in the country and hence will' guarantee further decline in fertility. It will also facilitate reduction in infant and maternal mortality and morbidity.

True, early marriages are deep rooted in our culture, and the minimum age at marriage law enacted two decades ago has had little impact on raising the marriage age in the country. Still more than 50 percent of marriages occur below the prescribed minimum age of 18 years for girls. Also, it is embedded in our culture that a couple has to demonstrate their fertility soon after marriage. With all the communication revolution, it should not, however, be difficult to make people understand that having pregnancies too early and too soon can jeopardize the health of both the mother and the child. If this realization occurs, it will not be difficult to promote spacing for few years after marriage (for those who marry early) or in between two births, which will go a long way in ensuring the population stabilization.

Finally, I. as a new Chief Editor, appeal to all those engaged in research in the field to contribute generously their experience in the journal to enrich our knowledge and facilitate attaining the sustainable development. I wish to place on record the valuable contribution of the erstwhile Editorial Board with Dr. K. Srinivasan under whose inspiring guidance the journal has grown from strength to strength. I welcome the new committee members who have kindly agreed to work with me to carry on the good work of the earlier committees.

T. K. Roy
Chief Editor, Demography India