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Focus 1992 January - March English |
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Volume. VI. No.1.
January - March, 1992
BULLETIN
OF FAMILY
PLANNING
FOUNDATION
BHARAT RATNA FOR A LIVING LEGEND
Bharat Ratna - Vishwa Ratna
M r. J R D Tata, the Grand Old Man of Indian Industry, who has been
awarded Bharat Ratna, the highest civilian honour of the nation, is a
promoter of and crusader for many a cause in the service of
humanity. His is a multi-splendoured personality -- a visionary, a missionary, a
seer, a doer -- all harrnonised into one.
President R. Venkataraman presenting the Bharat Raina award to Mr J R D Tata at the glittering
ceremony held in the Rashtrapaii Bhawan on March 28, 1992.
For over four decades he has led a relentless crusade for the promotion of
family planning - till it became a 'magnificent obsession' with him - as a means
to raise the quality of life of his fellow citizens. However, it is his holistic view of
the population problem that has turned him into an equally strong humanist
and conservationist, concerned no less with the problems of poverty and
environment.
This 'magnificent obsession' of Mr Tata has earned him another rare honour
in the year of the Earth Summit - the U.N. Population Award for 1992.He is the
third Asian to have been thus honoured by the world community, the other two
being our late Prime Minister, Mrs Indira Gandhi and President Suharto of
Indonesia.
JRDTATA
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Training Workshops for Industrial Managers to Promote Family Planning
After having created a lot of awareness and enthusiasm
among the managerial cadres in the organised sector for
furtherance of family planning activities in the industrial
workers through its nine workshops held at Calcutta, Patna,
Bombay, Ahmedabad, Kanpur, Chandigarh, Madras,
Bangalore and Bhopal over a period of two years starting in
March 1989 and culminating into a National Symposium in
Delhi in March 1991, the Family Planning Foundation has
embarked upon the second phase of this research-cum-
social-action project. In order to translate the aims of the
workshops into positive action, the Foundation has designed
special training courses for industrial managers to ensure
effective management of family planning efforts.
The first of these two-day training workshops was held
at the Foundation headquarters in New Delhi on February 25
and 26, 1992 and the second at the Management
Development Institute at Gurgaon on March 13 and 14, 1992.
Here is a brief report of these workshops.
Delhi Workshop
Inaugurating the Delhi Workshop,
Dr Bharat Ram, a leading industrialist
and Vice Chairman of the FPF,.said that
the Government, it seemed, was at last
veering round to formulating a
meaningful response to the challenge of
population. "India is adopting an
absolute new economic order and this
Dr Bharat Ram, Vice places Indian industry at the heart of the
Chairman FPF, nation building programmes," he
inaugurating the
Delhi Workshop.
observed.
He felt that there would be no
difficulty in bringing the industry into assisting the national
family planning programme in a much more meaningful
way because it enabled the employer to give expression to
his time-tested instinct of philanthropy and social service.
Dwelling on the role of managers in the family
planning programme, he said that in the new economic
environment it was quite on the cards that the organised
sector would playa much more significant and participative
role in a wide range of activities including such fields as
national reconstruction and social mobilisation.
Earlier, in a special message Mr J R 0 Tata too echoed
this view when he said that organised sector was clearly in a
position to reshape the ultimate population profile of the
country.
Mr Jalaluddin Ahmed, Adviser, Labour and Population
in the ILO Office, New Delhi, who also spoke at the
inaugural function, highlighted the role of International
Labour Organisation in the South-East Asian and Pacific
Region, particularly with reference to population.
Mr Harish Khanna, Executive Director of the
Foundation spelt out the role of the organisation in firstly to
sensitising the managers and professional industrial cadres
to the need of family planning, and secondly undertaking to
provide necessary motivation and skills to the industrial
managers to be able to direct family planning programmes in
and around their factories by providing on-plant facilities as
well as through a "cluster" approach.
As many as 21 managers responded to the invitation of
the Family Planning Foundation assisted by the PHD
Chambers of Commerce and Industry. Prominent
participating industries included Kelvinator of India, Dabur
India, Escorts Ltd., Hindustan Insulations, Delhi Milk
Scheme and Saraswati Sugar Mills, Yamunanagar.
Gurgaon Workshop
In his inaugural speech Mr Jagdish Anand of Anand
Group of Industries called upon the Managers to bring more
and more workers into the fold of family planning. He was
of the view that family planning was basically very cost
effective even for industry and the captains of industry
should follow the lead given by Mr J R 0 Tata in this matter.
Earlier, Mr Harish Khanna, Executive Director of the
FPF said that organised industry represented a very active
and dynamic segment of society and if family planning was
accepted among the industrial workers in this segment, then,
it would have a lot of multiplier effect in the community.
In her keynote address, Mrs Nina Puri, President,
Family Planning Association of India, Haryana Branch,
explained how wi th their own example they were able to
motivate workers in the Sugar industry in Yamunanagar. She
asked that if Indonesia could reduce the pa.· rom above 5
children to around 3 children in a matter of 1 .lyears, then
why could we not do the same in India?
Mr P K Mahapatra, Deputy Commissioner of Gurgaon,
who made the valedictory commended the message of
family planning for the workers in the organised sector. Mr
Mahapatra also distributed certificates on behalf of the
Family Planning Foundation to the participants representing,
among others, industries like Purolator India, Maruti Udyog,
IDPL, Bajaj Motors, Gabriel India, Milkfood Limited.
TRAIIIIIIi FOI MAIA6ERS IlIImUSTRIAL ENTERPRISES
011 PROIIlOTJDIIOF FA., WELFAIE •• THE OIIWIISED SECTOR
GUlGAOI,MARCH 13 & 14, 1992
FAIILY PL
Mr Harish Khanna, Executive Director FPF, addressing the Gurgaon
Workshop. Seated from left to right: Dr Nalini Abraham, Senior Project
Coordinator FPF, Mr Jagdish Anand of Anqnd Group of Industries, and
Mrs Nina Puri, President, FPA¥, Haryana Branch.
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EDITORIAL,
Earth Summit: Will Rio Rise to the Occasion ?
Our small planet is being ravaged and its limited resources are
fast disappearing. Global warming and atmospheric pollution
compounded by greenhouse gases and ozone depletion are already
posing a potential threat to the organic life as a whole.
Scientific studies and reports are simply alarming. They sound
like doomsday predictions.
Every year farmers of the world have to grow food for 95 million
more people, using some 26 billion tons less of topsoil. And each year
deforestation of 11 million hectares takes place in the developing
countries mainly to meet the increased demand for farmland and
exports of forest products to industrialised countries.
Meteorological experts point out that the 1980s was the hottest decade ever recorded, and that the
global temperature would rise by 0.3 degree Celcius per decade if the man-made pollution of the
atmosphere is not checked .
. There are now authoritative findings that vast areas of the earth will be subject to recurring severe
droughts while the rise in sea levels (due to melting of polar ice caps) may cause the disappearance of
some low-lying island-nations like Maldives if timely steps are not taken to counteract global warming.
It is against this grim scenario that over 100 heads of Government and 10,000 scientists and '
environmentalists - the world's biggest-ever congregation of its kind -- are meeting for the Earth
Summit, better known as the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) at
Rio de Janeiro, the capital of Brazil, in early June to suggest workable solutions to major ecological
problems threatening the future of human race.
Throughout the gruelling preparatory rounds to the Rio Summit lasting over two years, India has
been advocating that the environmental issues cannot be seen in isolation from the problems of
population and development, especially that of massive poverty in the Third World countries. And this
view seems to have struck a responsive chord in the global community, although differences in
perception and approach as to the respective obligation~ of the d~veloped and developing nations in
sharing the burden of cleaning up our planet, still exist.
The task before the cream of h
differences and come out with a m
development that would be more
~ meeting at Rio is to show vision for resOlvingtheSt
Charter''' lncorporating' thegqidelinedw a ~ of
tlie~~.tid
sensitive to ~ problems of pov~
Will Rio dsato the occasion?
World Bank Aid for
Bombay Environmental Plan
The World Bank has given a 'go-
ahead' to the Maharashtra Government
for embarking upon the first phase of
the Rs.l000 crore Metropolitan
Environmental Improvement
Programme (MEIP) for Greater
Bombay, by approving the terms of
reference for the project.
As a first measure, the World
Bank has sanctioned 2.65 million
, dollars for undertaking various studies
to identify the specific environmental
problems of the metropolis. These
studies, to be completed within a span
of three years, are meant for raising .
funds for the programme from
international financial agencies.
Bombay is one of the five Asian
cities which have been selected for the
MEIP. Beijing, Jakarta, Colombo and
Manila are the other four.
The terms of reference approved
by the World Bank include the
formulation of a fool-proof
environmental strategy and action plan
for solving the problems in the Bombay
Metropolitan Region, and measures for
disposing off toxic and hazardous
waste.
U G C Chairman calls for
Promoting Environmental
Education
Prof G Ram Reddy, Chairman
University Grants Commission
emphasised the urgent need for
promoting environmental education in
a big way to create mass awareness
about the problem of degradation due
to population boom and excessive
pollution while addressing the first
convocation of the lamia Hamdard
University in New Delhi on January 29,
1992.
Pointing out that even a large
number of educated people were not
aware of the seriousness of
environmental degradation, he stressed
that the universities and educational
institutions must promote more active
participation of the student community
in social problems such as environment
and literacy, apart from carrying out
their important functions of teaching
and research.
''Educational institutions,
teachers and students cannot remain
silent spectators of the fast-
deteriorating environmental scene," the
U G C Chairman said. In this context,
he added it was heartening to note that
the National Policy on Education stated
that there was a paramount need to
create consciousness about the
environment which must permeate
through all age groups and sections.
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Nav Chetna Project -- Lalitpur
~An Innovative Project to Integrate Health with Socio-economic Development
Set in the rugged and rocky Bundelkhand terrain in the
extreme south west corner of Uttar Pradesh is the district of
Lalitpur, one of the rnost backward districts of the State in
socio-economic terms. Here, in pursuance of its policy to
accord highest priority to action-research demonstration
projects, the Family Planning Foundation (FPF) has
sponsored an integrated health and development project
which is so designed as to become a model of community-
based self-sustaining socio-economic development.
While the FPF has undertaken to provide technical,
monitoring and financial support, the task of implementing
this innovative project has been entrusted to the voluntary-
sector Harriet-Benson Memorial Hospital (HBl'4H) located at
the district headquarters of Lalitpur, with a very creditable
record of looking after the health needs of the people of the
district. Backed by his rich and varied experience of running
a 40-bed general hospital, delivering mobile
community health services, besides
maintaining 17 rural health posts, the
dedicated and dynamic Hospital
Superintendent, Mr N K Bachan, has, as
Project Director, undertaken to integrate social
and economic development activities with the
health programmes in a systematic and
scientific way as spelt out in the detailed
project report prepared by Dr Nalini Abraham
of the FPF with his active association.
"An equal access to social and health
services does not provide equal opportunities
to the different vulnerable groups. But this
project will ensure an unequal distribution
that gives priority to 'at risk' populations in
order to achieve the goal of effective equality,"
says Dr Abraham.
The Project
During the first phase of the project spanning a period
of two years, the entire Birdha block -one of the six blocks in
the district - consisting of 150 villages with a population of
about one lakh, will be covered. During the last six months
of the first phase, the design after fine-tuning through
experience, would be introduced into the adjoining block of
Jhakura. It is intended to be dovetailed into the second phase
for implementation in the remaining five blocks over a total
period of five years, two new blocks being added each year.
The objectives of the prc'ect have been broadly
classified as Health and Development objectives.
Health Objectives
Health objectives include full immunisation of at least
85 per cent of infants for the six vaccine preven able diseases;
full immunisation of at least 85 per cent of the pregnant
women with two doses of tetanus toxoid; regular growth
monitoring of 80 per cent of toddlers and infants to reduce
malnutrition among them; reduction of diarrhoeal deaths
among toddlers by 50 per cent through ORS therapy and Vit.
A administration; reduction in perinatal and maternal
mortality and morbidity by ensuring training of 90 per cent
traditional birth attendants (TBAs) in aseptic methods of
delivery and adequate antenatal care of pregnant women,.
Family Planning needs of the community are to be
taken care of by making FP supplies and services accessible
to all eligible couples while ensuring that at least 50 per cent
of the eligibles do use them.
.
Development Objectives
Socio-economic development programmes are based
on the priority needs of the community. These include
raising of female literacy (from the present 10 per cent to 60
per cent) and work participation (from the current 6.6 per
cent to 20 per cent) as also reduction in below - 18 marriage
of girls (from the present 84 per cent to 40 per cent) and child
labour (from the current four per cent to two per cent). While
promoting agriculture, animal husbandry, wasteland
development, low-cost housing and sanitation,
emphasis is to be laid that at least one member
from every family below the poverty line
acquires 'Some income-generating resource or
skill. Further, it is to be ensured that every
viIIage has at least one easily accessible and
safe source of drinking water throughout the
year and that the community itself maintains
these and other community owned resources.
Approach and Methodology
"In this development effort, the role of
the FPF would be that of a catalyst to bring
together specialised development agencies of
the Go:vernment and Non-Government
Organisations (NGOs) for a synergistic effort
in the, project area," avers its Executive
Director Mr Harish Khanna.
Community participation through social
mobilisation and strengthening and use of
community institutions as also skills development and
training of local workers are some of the. 'people-based'
methodologies which are going to playa key role not only in
the realisation of the project objectives but also in ensuring
its sustainability beyond funding life and replicability in
other blocks with minimal additional inputs.
Project Structure
Headed by a Director, the project team includes a·
Project Manager, four Development Action Coordinators,
two Auxiliary-Nurse Midwives (ANMs), a general Assistant
and an Audio-Visual Assistant.
The village functionaries to be trained include one
Village Level Worker (VLW) for every village (or for a
population of 1000), who will serve as ahealth worker,
mahila mandaI organiser or teacher. All Traditional Birth
Attendants (TBAs) operating in the area would be trained.
While taking full advantage of the existing community
organisations such as panchayats, mahila mandals, youth
forums etc. where they are functional to implement the
project, in other places a Project Management Committee
would be set up to oversee the project operations.
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Watch over Implementation
A meticulous time-schedule has been drawn for
implementation of major project activities to be monitored
by an in-built system for the various levels of management at
HBMH and FPF. The project monitoring cell at FPF would
keep an overall watch and would suggest corrective
measures as and when necessary. At the end of two years,
the project would be subjected to an independent external
evaluation to assess its impact.
For impleme ing the first phase of the project covering
Birdha block during the first two-year period, the FPF would
make available about Rs.20 lakhs for meeting recurring and
non-recurring expenditure. The contribution of HBMH
would include cost of drugs, supplies, diagnostics,
institutional care of referred cases apart from making use of
their existing infrastructure.
Progress So Far
Although the Lalitpur project was put on the ground
on December 1, 1991 with the appointment of four field
Coordinators, the real work started only in January 1992
when the people were apprised about the project through
printed leaflets.
All project personnel have been put in position.
Village and block survey reports have been prepared.
208 village level health workers have been selected and
their training is well under way, in fact ahead of the
prescribed bench mark.
During the first quarter of 1992, the Project Director did
lot of spade work to prepare the ground for
implementation of his action-plan. He met local officials
- B.D.o., District Development Officer and other district
officers - as well as opinion leaders like village
pradhans, women and youth leaders explaining the
objectives of the project. He received a very good
response. The process is to continue.
Some Glaring Facts
i) Average family size is 5.22 while the number of fully
immunised infants is nil.
ii) Only 3.1% of the villages have some medical facility and
only 12% of the population have access to medical aid.
iii) The per capita expenditure on health per annum is
Rs.13.35. The IMR for rural Lalitpur is 146 and under
five child mortality is 244. The under 5 female mortality
is 271.
iv) Only 36 villages out of a total 150 have got piped -vater
supply.
v) A bare 7.4% of the villages with 17.5% of population are
electrified.
vi) Only 84.4 per cent of the population and 63 per cent of
the villages have some education facility within the
village.
Making Violators of Small Family Norm Ineligible for Elective Offices
Union Health Minister's Proposal at State Health Ministers' Conference
MR M L FOTEDAR, the Union Minister for Health and
Family Welfare, told a conference of health ministers of
States held at New Delhi on January 6 and 7, 1992 to
consider a proposal that persons having more than two
children should be ineligible for any elected office, right
from panchayat to Parliament, so that it will set an example
to the people to adhere to the small family norm.
Stating that the idea was innovative and might seem
far-fetched, Mr Fotedar said after deep and careful thought
he was convinced that it was a measure which will
"decisively help us surmount our population problem". "It
will be internationally seen as a measure indicative of the
determination and resolution of the people of India, as
expressed by the political leadership, to overcome the
explosive problem" he said.
"This will bolster international confidence in India's
ability to cope at a crucial juncture in our economic life, with
the most serious problem," he added.
Quoting figures, the Health Minister stated that
population growth was at a rate of 2.03 per cent which
meant that the present population of 85 crores will have
doubled to 170 crores by the year 2024. "It would be a
herculean task to bring down the birth rate from 29.9 to 21
per thousand in the next nine years," he added.
Unfortunately, he said, the health sector had not
received the attention it deserved. The total public
expenditure on health 6f both the States and Centre put
together was about 0.9 per cent of the gross domestic
product (CDP). This compared rather unfavourably with the
average of developing countries.
The Planning Commission had agreed to accord the
health sector a much higher priority in the Eighth Plan but
the States will have to accommodate a much larger share for
this sector in their Plans. In view of shortage of resources, it
will be necessary to optimise the utilisation of scarce
resources by ensuring efficiency of implementation and
concentrating on a few priority areas, Mr Fotedar observed.
The Health Minister also referred to the problem of
AIDS, the need to strengthen and enforce drug laws, the
distortions that had crept into the medical education system
and the need to open more private colleges, the outbreaks of
epidemics in tribal areas of Andhra Pradesh, Madhya
Pradesh and Orissa and the urgent need to tackle the
problem of cataract-induced blindness.
Addressing the Conference, Mr Pranab Mukherjee,
Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, announced
that it will support a long-term strategy to check the
country's alarming population growth and asked the States
to fully avail themselves of the Central assistance for family
planning programmes.
While a long-term strategy was advisable to tackle the
problem in its totality, immediate steps were required to
check the population growth in Bihar, M.P., Rajasthan and
U.P. which had a much higher population growth rate than
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the rest of the country, Mr Mukherjee said.
The Deputy Chairman told the conference that the
Planning Commission was preparing a package of incentives
for those States which performed well in the family planning
programmes..
Calling for a national movement to tackle the
population problem, Mr Mukherjee said that the Planning
Commission was taking steps to encourage voluntary
organisations engaged in the health and family welfare
programme~
Family Planning: Effective Local
Leadership Makes the Difference
Five states in India -- Maharashtra, Punjab,
Gujarat, Kerala and Tamil Nadu have levels of
contraceptive use and significant declines in fertility
that compare favourably with those of other
developing countries with successful family planning
programmes.
This finding of the Population Crisis Committee,
a Washington-based non-official organisation, comes in
a report selecting five countries as winners and five as
losers in progress made since the early eighties in
spreading the message of family planning among its
people. Significantly, the report places India at the head
of the winners (other winners: Thailand, Colombia,
Morocco and Kenya), and the U.S.A. at the head of
losers (other losers: the Philippines, Saudi Arabia,
Malawi and Haiti).
"The choice was made not by judging the
countries' achievements against any absolute norm but
by comparing the progress they have made in a
decade", the committee says.
The commendation for India was mainly due to
the achievements of afore-mentioned five States
enabling the country to achieve a decline in fertility rate
during 1980-91 from 5.3 to 3.9. The Crisis Committee
notes that as many as 50 per cent of couples use a
contraceptive method in the five states and the average
number of children born to a woman has fallen by one-
third to one-half.
"Strong local political commitment is a key factor
in the family planning success of these states. The
Government funds family planning activities and has
established a network of facilities throughout the
country, but effective local leadership in these five
States has made better use of the available resources
than has been the case in other parts of the country. In
Kerala, the unusually high status of women has also
played an important role in fertility decline", according
to the Committee which, at the same time, avers that
family planning in India has not become the national
priority as it is in countries like China and Bangladesh.
Observing that the Indian Government need to.
intensify its family planning and other development
efforts in the country's four northern States -- Uttar
Pradesh, Rajasthan, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh -
accounting. for 40 per cent of the country's population,
the Committee notes that in these States in particular,
the low priority given to family planning, high rates of
illiteracy, poverty and the very low status of women
are all factors contributing to the relatively small
decline in fertility.
New Birth Control
Vaccines in the Offing
The country's population control e orts are likely
to receive a major boost by the turn of this century with
four different vaccines currently undergoing advanced
efficacy trials at various centres.
According to Prof. G P Talwar of the National
Institute of Immunology, of these vaccines, the hCG
vaccine is currently being put through phase-2 of the
clinical trials. Its safety and efficacy had been
established in a multicentre phase-1 trial carried out at
nine institutions in Brazil, Chile, Finland, Sweden and
India.
Three of the country's premier medical centres,
the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi,
the Post-Graduate Institute of Medical Education and
Research, Chandigarh, and Safdarjung Hospital, New
Delhi, were conducting the Phase-2 trials on women in
the high fertility age group. Already 642 menstrual
cycles had been covered with total protection from
pregnancy against the 750 set as the target for
establishing statistical relevance.
Outlining some of the details about this hormone-
based vaccine, the first birth control vaccine anywhere
in the world to have gained international recognition,
Prof Talwar said that the vaccine was an example of a
double benefit structured vaccine and was
administered using the OPT vaccine as a vehicle. This
enables it to achieve the dual purpose of offering the
woman protection from tetanus (one of the commonest
causes of death related to child birth) while also serving
as a reversible means of.sterilisation. The vaccine had
veritably no side-effects (unlike birth control pills) as it
did not alter either oestrogen or progesterone levels,
nor did it affect normal ovulation. Instead it only
encouraged formation of the corpus luteum (leading to
menstruation) thereby safeguarding the woman from
conception. The World Population Council had
acknowledged the safety of the vaccine by establishing
the absence of any pathological changes in a trial
conducted on 63 monkeys.
Of the three other vaccines, one was an exciting
new vaccine called WILSI, based on a neem extract.
This vaccine had been tested extensively in the
laboratory and found to bea very effective single dose
contraceptive with a 3-6 month cover period. To be
administered locally in the uterus, the vaccine was
currently awaiting the Drug Controller's clearance for
commencement of clinical trials as an adjunct to the
hCG vaccine.
Indian Express: March 12, 1992
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EDITORIAL COMMENTS
The Problem of Too Many
All those who feel concerned over the high rate of population growth in the country will support the idea
mooted by the Health and Family Welfare Ministry to debar those having more than two children from holding
any elective post. Although the decision in itself will not solve the problem of population explosion, it will
definitely give a boost to the family planriing cam paign .
The question is one of bringing down the population growth rate. There are two streams of thought in this
regard as un rscored at the Indian Science Congress session in Baroda. Those who believe that development is
the best anti te for population growth argue that once the nation achieves a certain level of progress,
population will show a negative growth rate. They point out that the high literacy rate, particularly among
women, expansion of medicare and drop in infant mortality rate are what helped Kerala achieve appreciable
progress on the family planning front. But the point is it will take several decades to replicate the Kerala model
in other States, particularly in the north. By then, the population there would have increased by leaps and
bounds. This necessitates artificial methods to contain the growth rate. However, the experience during the
Emergency period deters most political parties from espousing the small family concept. As a result, the
programme has been getting only lip sympathy. Fortunately, the Narasimha Rao Government has shown better
awareness of the problem. What remains to be seen is how it will translate the awareness into concrete action.
.".:
Reviving Family Planning
-Edit. Hindustan Times, Jan 8, 1992
•
It is good that populationc:ontrol and family planning are once again being put on the national agenda .
.. The credit for this riglitfuny goes to the Union Health Ministry. It is not everyday that there is consensus on
radical measures to control"population growth. It mayor may not be legally feasible to debar those with more
.Jt~Jl two children from holding any elective office. The point, however, is that at long last the negative
connotations associatea with the expression "family planning" since the mid-1970s, arc now being shed and a
political-will-is being demonstrated to bring the growth in population under control. When the Prime Minister
himself talks of the inadequacy of the distributive network for contraceptives in rural India, he is sending a
political signal about the importance he attaches to family planning measures. Thus, it would not do to laugh
off his idea of distributing contraceptives through paanwalas, Anganwadi workers and community leaders. It
should be taken as the demonstration of political will to work out a comprehensive strategy involving
incentives/ disincentives, education and health care for effecting a demographic transition in the country .....
The Prime Minister was right when he told the Health Ministry to study the issue afresh taking into
account social and psychological factors. It can safely be said that the social factors at least relate to the grossly
unequal ac-cessto health and education between rural and urban areas as well as between men and women in
the States with high population growth rates.
- Edit. Indian Express, January 9, 1992
Little Knowledge
The findings of an Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore study of the impact of the family planning
campaign in Karnataka confirm the shocking failure of 40 years of the exercise. Almost a fifth of the women
surveyed in 50 villages in the State was found not to use any birth control methods. A high proportion of even
those who underwent sterilisation had little or no knowledge of other options available and a number of
women refused to use any contraceptive method because close relatives - especially husbands and parents-in-
law - were opposed to them. Aversion to birth control was also prompted by a desire for more children though
the study showed at least 11 per cent of the non-users had more than four children.
But while the findings reinforce the impression that the dissemination of birth control information has
been far from efficient, they also reveal that there are established channels of communicating with the target
audience. Doctors and health workers being the primary sources, those living close to primary health centres
had a better knowledge of contraceptives than others. Radio and television were also important sources of
information. What is also encouraging about the findings is that religious biases had little influence on birth
control decisions, contrary to apprehensions. Only 0.6 per cent of the 4,000 women interviewed cited religion as
a reason for their not using contraceptives. The Health Ministry, which is reportedly considering a revamped
action plan, must now concentrate on effective communication with couples in the reproductive age even in
remote areas, with full information about options and safety guarantees.
- Edit. The Statesman, Jan. 6, 1992
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Population Problem:
PM's Warm Response to JRD's Letter
"The key to the problem of population seems to me female literacy and if
this problem can be dealt with adequately while taking care of the allied problems
of maternal and child nutrition, health, education, immunisation and generation of
employment, by the year 2000 A.D., we would have made significant progress,"
said the Prime Minister, Shri P V Narasimha Rao.
The Prime Minister was responding to a recent letter of Mr J R D Tata, who
had congratulated the Prime Minister for his admirable sense of realism in his
unique exposition of the problems before the nation, especially, the problems
posed by the high rate of population growth. Mr Tata had expressed the hope that
''having got our economic priorities right, what India needed most was a really
effective population policy."
Reciprocating Mr Tata's sentiments, coming as they did from one so deeply
committed to the cause of population control, the Prime Minister observed that
these were a source of great strength to him.
The Prime Minister has emphasised that he has always believed that "the
problem of population is not one that can be tackled by an isolated and sectoral
approach confined to any particular Ministry or Department, but by several
departments together, especially, Education, Women and Child Development,
Health and Family Welfare and Rural Departments."
The Prime Minister recalled that the National Development Council in its
meeting of December 1991 and the Conference of Health and Family Welfare
Ministers of States held in January this year, had fully endorsed this philosophy, as
well as the Action Plan formulated by the Government and again endorsed by the
National Development Council and States.
The Prime Minister has. welcomed Mr Tata's offer of cooperation and
reiterated his firm belief that "the essence of the implementation of this policy
would lie in successful micro-level planning during the Eighth Plan and
subsequent years."
"Humraahi" :A Happy Blend of Entertainment and Social Communication
"Humraahi", the family planning spouse dialogue - a concept of compan-
Mr J R D Tata and the Family
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soap opera, currently being screened
ionship in which decisions are made by Planning Foundation have been at the
on the Doordarshan national network
common consent, including the
back of this venture all along. "One
every Tuesday (the first episode was
planning of families.
man - Mr Tata - gave us unstinted
telecast on January 14, 1992), is all set
to become a trend-setter for such
programmes aimed at securing desired
behavioural change in support of
socially important issues.
Produced by Roger Pereira, the
programme emphasises the point that
when women's status improves,
population regulation follows almost
automatically. It is now well-estab-
lished that some of the fundamental
fi.ctors responsible for India's high
birth rate are the low status of women,
female illiteracy and the early age of
marriage. "Humraahi" is tailored to
awaken viewers to the realisation that
such traditional norms are self-
defeating and must be changed.
"Humraahi" promotes inter-
According to Roger Pereira, it has
been a long journey in their search to
find the perfect balance between
entertainment and social communica-
tion. Judging by the popularity of the
serial, it appears to have been well
achieved.
''Humraahi'' succeeds to a
considerable extent, in creating a
critical awareness. The recently
introduced epilogue by the famous
film actress Tanuja not only puts the
featured issues in proper perspective
but also helps in carrying the debate
forward as is evidenced by the stream
of letters received from viewers.
Incidentally, the serial commands 80
per cent viewership in the metros,
according to latest surveys.
support all through our long wait and
much of the socio-cultural data that
have gone into the scripts of
"Humraahi" has come from research
done by the Foundation and provided
to us by Mr Harish Khanna whose
abiding interest In the fruition of the
project is very gratifying," acknowl-
edges Roger Pereira.
Two research projects will seek to
validate the Humraahi thesis: that
social communications can playa key
role in education and motivation. One
project will be conducted by the Family
Planning Foundation in collaboration
with Doordarshan. The other will be
conducted by the Annenburg School of
Communications in Los Angeles,
California under Prof Everett Rogers.
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