POPULATION POLICY IN INDIA

The term ‘population policy’ refers to the legislative measures, administrative programmes and other government actions in a country intended to regulate population size and its various attributes in the larger interest of the social, political and economic goals. The United Nations has defined population policy as “measures and programmes designed to the achievement of economic, social, demographic, political and other collective goals through affecting critical demographic variables”.
In other words, population policy refers to a set of government actions – legislative and administrative – which intend to influence, alter or modify some aspects of population. Population policy also includes those aspects of overall public policy of a country that affect its demographic attributes. Thus, population policy embraces both direct as well as indirect measures that influence demographic variables for the achievement of the desired national goals.
A positive population policy which aims at reducing the birth rate and ultimately stabilizing the growth rate of population. In India, where the majority of people are illiterate, fatalist, and custom-ridden, and do not believe in family planning, only the government’s initiative can help in controlling population growth.

Components of the current population policy in India
With the advent of independence, family planning as a measure of population control has been given top priority in the development plans of the country, starting with the First Five Year Plan (1951-56). The increasing financial allocations for the family planning programme in each successive plan are also indicative of the growing emphasis accorded to the family planning programme.
  i.      National Population Policy 1976 and 1977: Though implied in the family planning programme undertaken by the government, the population policy of the country was not explicitly stated, and it remained unarticulated in the formal sense. It was on April 16, 1976 that the National Population Policy was declared. It underwent some modifications in June, 1977.
Till the National Population Policy was first declared in April, 1976, the Population Policy of India was generally equated with the family planning policy. One of the grounds on which India was criticized in international circles was that other solutions to the population policy were ignored. The statement of the population policy took into account some of the complex relationships between the social, economic and political aspects of the population problem.
It included appropriate measures to tackle the population problem, many of which went “beyond family planning”. The policy statement also contained several approaches to the improvement of the family planning programme. The statement of policy regarding the Family welfare Programme issued on June 29, 1977, eliminates all measures which have the slightest element of compulsion or coercion, and emphasis on the welfare approach to the problem. The name of the Family Planning Programme, has also been changed to the Family Welfare Programme to reflect the government’s anxiety to promote through the programme the total welfare of the family and the community. Many of the measures outlined in the National Population Policy, declared in 1976, have been retained. These include the following:
a.      Raising the minimum legal age at marriage for girls to 18 and for boys to 21,
b.     Taking the population figure of 1971till the year 2001, in all cases where population is a factor in the sharing of the Central resources with the States, as in allocation of the Central assistance to the State Plans, devolution to taxes and duties and grants-in-aids,
c.      Accepting the principle of linking 8 per cent of the central assistance to the State Plans with their performance and success in the family welfare programme,
d.     Including population education in the formal school education system,
e.      Plans to popularize the family welfare programme and use of all media for this purpose,
f.       Participation of voluntary organizations in the implementation of the programme,
g.      Improvement of women’s educational level, both through formal and non-formal channels.
The Policy Statement also declared that the government would give special attention to the necessary research inputs in the field of reproductive biology and contraception.
ii.      National Population Policy 2000: India has framed a new National Population Policy in 2000. It enumerates certain socio-demographic goals to be achieved by 2010 which will lead to achieving population stabilization by 2045. The policy has identified the immediate objectives as meeting the unmet needs for contraception, healthcare infrastructure and trained health personnel and to provide integrated service delivery with the following interventions:
a. Strengthen community health centres, primary health centres and subcentres,
b.     Augment skills of health personnel and healthcare providers
c.   Bring about convergence in the implementation of related social sector programme to make Family Welfare Programme people centred.
d.    Integrate package of essential services at village and household levels by extending basic reproductive and child healthcare through mobile health clinics and counseling services; and explore the possibility of accrediting primitive medical practitioners and assigning them to defined beneficiary groups to provide these services (Govt. of India 2003).

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