Family planning has been a controversial issue in India since Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s 1975-77 State of Emergency. Her government was accused of forced sterilisations of both men (vasectomy) and women (tubal ligation).

There has been considerable progress in limiting population growth in the world’s second most populous country during the last four decades. Nevertheless, its current population is estimated to be 1.73 billion people, fast catching up to China’s 1.33 billion.

Firstly some good news:

In the 1965-2009 period, contraceptive usage has more than tripled (from 13% of married women in 1970 to 48% in 2009) and the fertility rate has more than halved (from 5.7 in 1966 to 2.7 in 2009), but the national fertility rate is still high enough to cause long-term population growth.
Family planning in India

The fertility rate of 2.7 is much higher than China’s 1.54, suggesting that it will overtake China as No.1 in population in the near future. The strictly enforced on-child policy is one that could not be transplanted to India. There is growing concern that the family planning program needs to be a much higher priority. Even the current government sees a need for more urgency:

India’s Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad said on Wednesday that India needed to turn its full attention on halting population growth.

In 2000, when India crossed the one billion mark, the country had hoped it was making enough progress to get its population to stop growing by 2045. Nowadays the government believes that is more likely to happen in 2060, when the country reaches 1.7 billion.

Mr. Azad has voiced his concerns on India’s population growth before. But he shied away from recommending any mandatory measures…
India’s Top Birth Control: Still Sterilization

Progress with meeting its MDG targets has been disappointing:

India has fallen behind in the race to meet the Millennium Development Goals for reducing its birth rate by 2015. Only about half of India's 26 states have reached the targeted level of two children per mother.

… for the first time the country is outsourcing the work to private clinics — a move that has raised concerns about poor and illiterate women of rural India being pressured or fooled into going under the knife without fully understanding the risks, consequences and alternatives.
India population: Is sterilization the answer?

In the next post on India’s population challenges, I’ll look at Family Planning and contraception in more detail. Any stories or links would be greatly appreciated.