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| Azad rejects legal route to family planning, calls for voluntary steps | | |
EARLY TIMES REPORT
NEW DELHI, APR 12: Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare Ghulam Nabi Azad has called for steps to prioritise population stability alongside on going efforts to augment healthcare facilities in rural areas.
Speaking at a function held here to mark the anniversary of now five-year-old National Rural Health Mission (NRHM), Azad stressed the need for efforts to stabilise population through drawing a comprehensive plan in consultation with States. He ruled out achieving this through bringing in legislation.
The Minister said, "While we are making all efforts to improve healthcare, time has come for all of us to think and accord priority to population stabilisation.
"We are in the process of making a comprehensive programme on population stabilisation in consultation with the State Governments." he remarked.
However Azad clarified that "Government doesn't want to achieve this through any legislation. Rather it would like people from all walks of life to come forward voluntarily in adopting appropriate family planning measures. This can be achieved by stopping child marriage, delaying the first child after marriage and spacing the birth, which not only will help in population stabilisation, but will also help the mother and the child."
Azad avoided making a direct reference to declining rate of birth of girl child, posing a serious threat to sex ratio in several States. Yet his idea of stabilising population could well include this.
Meanwhile, a Government Press release issued here said, that Assam won today the best performing state award for implementation of NRHM among North Eastern States. Rajasthan was adjudged the best performing State among the High Focus States, while Tamil Nadu claimed the award among other States category. Mizoram, Madhya Pradesh and Haryana were placed second in their respective categories.
The awards were given away by the Vice President Hamid Ansari on the occasion of completion of five years of NRHM.
Speaking on the occasion the Vice President emphasized that through the NRHM, the Central Government was facilitating the leadership of State governments in setting public health priorities and emphasizing human resource and governance reforms.
He put forward five challenges for NRHM in the years ahead. First, transition from curative to preventive healthcare; second, human resource management is a critical aspect of the immense scaling up represented by the NRHM; third, setting of output and outcome targets; fourth, convergence is a powerful theme in the area of human development and inclusive growth; and fifth, approaches to public health must look at the different stages of health transition at state and district levels so that appropriate strategies could be adopted.
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