Yogi Adityanath government to promote new family planning measures in Uttar Pradesh

Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh has decided to roll out a family planning scheme that was introduced by the Centre last year on world population day. [caption id=“attachment_3353110” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  File image of Yogi Adityanath. PTI[/caption] An initiative to provide and promote safe contraceptives, christened Mission Parivar Vikas, was launched in September last year by Union Health Minister JP Nadda to implement special and accelerated efforts to reach the required goals by 2025. The scheme identified 145 districts with the highest total fertility rates and poorest sterilization performance among other measures. The districts are across states, such as Rajasthan, UP and Bihar, which are known to have high total fertility rates. These districts are alone home to India’s 28% population. According to Press Information Bureau, these districts have total fertility rates more than or equal to 3.0, whereas the government plans to bring it down to 2.0 or lower by 2025. “These districts also have a substantial impact on maternal and child health indicators as about 25-30% of maternal deaths and 50% of infant deaths occur in these districts Moreover, 115 of these districts (79%) have high percentage of adolescent mothers,” according to Hindustan Times.  However, in UP, Adityanath’s predecessor, Akhilesh Yadav was not keen on implementing the scheme despite Centre’s instructions in November last year, according to a report in Economic Times. It is noteworthy here that UP, India’s most populous state, has  11 districts which have TFR above 4 including Bahraich and Balrampur at 4.8 and Siddharthnagar at 4.9. The UP government plans to set up free condom boxes at strategic locations, launch measures to educate couples on use of contraception and training anganwadi and local health workers to give women contraceptive injections.