M A I N   N E W S

Haryana pushing sterilisations to meet family planning targets
Aditi Tandon/TNS

New Delhi, February 24
Despite the National Population Policy advocating a target-free approach, Haryana continues to practise family planning policies that involve setting of targets and undue dependence on sterilisations as the primary form of contraception.

A new survey on access to contraceptives paints a dismal picture of the state with 57.7 per cent women saying that they have never used contraception and close to half saying that they have never heard of non-permanent methods of contraception.

Findings further reveal that the state has been pushing permanent methods of sterilisation to reach the total fertility rate target of 2.1 (number of children in the reproductive lifespan of a woman). Haryana conducted 273 non-scalpel vasectomy camps (male sterilisations) as against a target of 336 camps in 2010. It held 892 tubectomy camps against the target of 1,092 for the year. “In the new initiatives, the state is using to control population include vasectomy and tubectomy camps. Hundreds of camps are being held in government settings while access to reversible contraceptives is lacking,” says Dipika Jain of the Centre for Health law, Ethics and Technology, OP Jindal Law University, which has piloted the research. Haryana also keeps a dedicated sterilisation budget under which Rs 600 is given as incentive to persons of SC/ST and BPL categories who opt for tubectomy. General category women get Rs 250 per head for sterilisation. “The practice of incentivising sterilisations is robbing women of the chance to opt for non-permanent contraception methods such as diaphragms, oral contraceptive pills, condoms and emergency contraception. That is in violation of the National Population Policy which talks of complete contraceptive information for women to choose from,” researcher Natassia Rozario told TNS.

In the field surveys at Kurukshetra, Panipat, Sonepat, Kaithal and Mewat, 45.2 per cent married women said they had never heard of diaphragms (barrier method which covers the cervix preventing the sperm from fertilising an egg) or female condoms; only 11.3 per cent had heard of copper T; 9.5 per cent of condoms and 2 per cent of pills. A whopping 89 per cent unmarried girls said they didn’t know of the full range of contraceptives available while 54 per cent said they knew about sterilisations. The survey has thrown up an important finding which has national implications - ASHA workers (for every village of 1,000 persons, one ASHA worker is posted under the National Rural Health Mission) informed women only about sterilisations because the NRHM incentivises them for such a task. The NRHM doesn’t pay ASHAs a fixed salary it pays them on incentive basis - Rs 150 to motivate women for tubectomy; Rs 250 for motivation for vasectomy.

Dismal picture

• A whopping 89 per cent unmarried girls said they didn’t know of full range of contraceptives available
• As many as 54 per cent said they knew about sterilisations.