Tamil Nadu leads population control through family planning in India

The southern Indian state has come first in achieving the target to control population growth through intensive family planning campaigns.

India has intensified population control programmes against the background of forecasts that the country would soon become the most populous country in the world.

In an effort to control the unbridled popualtion growth, India has set an ambitious target of achieving Total Fertility Rate (TFR) of 2:1, which translates into two kids per couple.

The population policy of 2000 had envisaged that if the national TFR of 2.1 was achieved, the number of Indians would be stabilised around 2045.

The target has fallen well below the line essentially due to the failure of northern states in containing their average family size.

Union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad explained in Parliament that barring 14 states, mainly from south rest had failed to achieve the target and at current rate the population will not stabilise even by 2070.

Among the southern states Tamil Nadu has come up first.

Apart from Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Punjab, West Bengal, Delhi, Chandigarh and Puducherry could achieve the target.

But states such as Bihar, Chhatisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand and Rajasthan had failed miserably and the TFR in these states continue to be above four.

Mr Azad, however, ruled out forced contraception to rein in the population explosion in India.

The minister sought help from all political parties to make family planning campaign a success as a new population policy was on the anvil.

Azad linked the population growth in those states to poverty and faulty adherence to norms.

“Poverty is one reason for population explosion, early marriage is another,” he said.

While the official age for marriage is 18, about 70% of all marriages in Bihar take place when the partners are just 15 or 16, Azad said. In UP, 59% of marriages occur before they reach 18.

“36 per cent of women (in the two states) give birth before they are 18,” Azad said pointing to another factor contributing to population explosion.

Commenting on the tremendous pressure on available land, he said that containing population would be impossible unless all this was corrected.

“Of the additional 36 crore in the next 16 years, the six northern states will have a 50% share,” he said.

“Even if every married couple begins adhering to the two-child norm, still it will take many years to stabilise the national population to a satisfactory level,” he said.