National Population Policy 2000

The overriding objective of economic and social development is to improve the quality of lives that people lead, to enhance their well-being, and to provide them with opportunities and choices to become productive assets in society.

In 1952, India was the first country in the world to launch a national programme, emphasizing family planning to the extent necessary for reducing birth rates “to stabilize the population at a level consistent with the requirement of national economy”. After 1952, sharp declines in death rates were, however, not accompanied by a similar drop in birth rates. The National Health Policy, 1983 stated that replacement levels of total fertility rate (TFR) should be achieved by the year 2000.

On 11 May, 2000 India is projected to have 1 billion (100 crore) people, i.e. 16 percent of the world’s population on 2.4 percent of the globe’s land area. If current trends continue, India may overtake China in 2045, to become the most populous country in the world. While global population has increased threefold during this century, from 2 billion to 6 billion, the population of India has increased nearly five times from 238 million (23 crore) to 1 billion in the same period. India’s current annual increase in population of 15.5 million is large enough to neutralize efforts to conserve the resource endowment and environment.

India’s Demographic Achievement

Half a century after formulating the national family welfare programme, India has:

• Reduced crude birth rate (CBR) from 40.8 (1951) to 26.4 (1998, SRS)
• Halved the infant mortality rate (IMR) from 146 per 1000 live births (1951) to 72 per 1000 live births (1998, SRS)
• Quadrupled the couple protection rate (CPR) from 10.4 per cent (1971) to 44 per cent (1999)
• Reduced crude death rate (CDR) from 25 (1951) to 9.0 (1998, SRS)
• Added 25 years to life expectancy from 37 years to 62 years
• Achieved nearly universal awareness of the need for and methods of family planning
• Reduced total fertility rate from 6.0 (1951) to 3.3 (1997, SRS)

Population Projections For India (million)

March 1991                  846.3

March 2001                 1012.4

March 2011                  1178.9

March 2016                  1263.5

Stabilising population is an essential requirement for promoting sustainable development with more equitable distribution. However, it is as much a function of making reproductive health care accessible and affordable for all, as of increasing the provision and outreach of primary and secondary education, extending basic amenities including sanitation, safe drinking water and housing, besides empowering women and enhancing their employment opportunities, and providing transport and communications.

The National Population Policy, 2000 (NPP 2000) affirms the commitment of government towards voluntary and informed choice and consent of citizens while availing of reproductive health care services, and continuation of the target free approach in administering family planning services. The NPP 2000 provides a policy framework for advancing goals and prioritizing strategies during the next decade, to meet the reproductive and child health needs of the people of India, and to achieve net replacement levels (TFR) by 2010. It is based upon the need to simultaneously address issues of child survival, maternal health, and contraception, while increasing outreach and coverage of a comprehensive package of reproductive and child heath services by government, industry and the voluntary non-government sector, working in partnership.

Objectives

The immediate objective of the NPP 2000 is to address the unmet needs for contraception, health care infrastructure, and health personnel, and to provide integrated service delivery forbasic reproductive and child health care. The medium-term objective is to bring the TFR to replacement levels by 2010, through vigorous implementation of inter-sectoral operational strategies. The long-term objective is to achieve a stable population by 2045, at a level consistent with the requirements of sustainable economic growth, social development, and environmental protection.

In pursuance of these objectives, the following National Socio-Demographic Goals to be achieved in each case by 2010 are formulated:

• Address the unmet needs for basic reproductive and child health services, supplies and infrastructure
• Make school education up to age 14 free and compulsory, and reduce drop outs at primary and secondary school levels to below 20 percent for both boys and girls
• Reduce infant mortality rate to below 30 per 1000 live births
• Reduce maternal mortality ratio to below 100 per 100,000 live births
• Achieve universal immunization of children against all vaccine preventable diseases
• Promote delayed marriage for girls, not earlier than age 18 and preferably after 20 years of age
• Achieve 80 per cent institutional deliveries and 100 percent deliveries by trained persons
• Population growth in India continues to be high on account of:

The large size of the population in the reproductive age-group (estimated contribution 58 percent). An addition of 417.2 million between 1991 and 2016 is anticipated despite substantial reductions in family size in several states, including those which have already achieved replacement levels of TFR. This momentum of increase in population will continue for some more years because high TFRs in the past have resulted in a large proportion of the population being currently in their reproductive years. It is imperative that the reproductive age group adopts without further delay or exception the “small family norm”, for the reason that about 45 percent of population increase is contributed by births above two children per family.

Higher fertility due to unmet need for contraception (estimated contribution 20 percent). India has 168 million eligible couples, of which just 44 percent are currently effectively protected. Urgent steps are currently required to make contraception more widely available, accessible, and affordable. Around 74 percent of the population lives in rural areas, in about 5.5 lakh villages, many with poor communications and transport. Reproductive health and basic health infrastructure and services often do not reach the villages, and, accordingly, vast numbers of people cannot avail of these services.

High wanted fertility due to the high infant mortality rate (IMR) (estimated contribution about 20 percent). Repeated child births are seen as an insurance against multiple infant (and child) deaths and accordingly, high infant mortality stymies all efforts at reducing TFR.

Over 50 per cent of girls marry below the age of 18, the minimum legal age of marriage, resulting in a typical reproductive pattern of “too early, too frequent, too many”. Around 33 per cent births occur at intervals of less than 24 months, which also results in high IMR.

• Achieve universal access to information/counseling, and services for fertility regulation and contraception with a wide basket of choices
• Achieve 100 per cent registration of births, deaths, marriage and pregnancy
• Contain the spread of Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS), and promote greater integration between the management of reproductive tract infections (RTI) and sexually transmitted infections (STI) and the National AIDS Control Organisation
• Prevent and control communicable diseases
• Integrate Indian Systems of Medicine (ISM) in the provision of reproductive and child health services, and in reaching out to households
• Promote vigorously the small family norm to achieve replacement levels of TFR
• Bring about convergence in implementation of related social sector programs so that family welfare becomes a people centred programme