Five years back, the figure was one in seven. Cut in spending, sterilisation push blamed for skewed availability of contraceptives
Maharashtra's family welfare programme has failed miserably in keeping pace with time as the unmet need of the family planning methods jumped to 19% from 14.2% between 2008 and 2013, reveals the latest demographic indicators. One in five women in Maharashtra are unable to plan pregnancy, including gap between two kids, due to lack of access to contraceptives, states the District Level Household and Facility Survey-4, statistics of which were made available recently.
Interestingly, the crisis is deeper in urban parts (20.7% unmet need) compared to rural (17.7%). Besides, spacing accounts for more than 60% of the unmet need, states the study. A significant increase in this gap between DLHS-3 and DLHS-4 surveys is cause of concern and indicates how Maharashtra's family planning program is flawed. Unwanted pregnancies and children put huge physical, emotional and economical pressure on women and their families. Experts seek a revamp of the program along with aggressive approach.
The extensive survey conducted by the Indian Institute of Population Science, Mumbai (IIPS) on behalf of the Union health and family welfare ministry took into account more than 52,000 households in Maharashtra of which nearly 29,000 houses were from rural areas.
Women with unmet need are those who are married and sexually active but are not using any method of contraception, and report not wanting any more children or wanting to delay the next child. The concept of unmet need points to the gap between women's reproductive intentions and their contraceptive behaviour.
Lackadisical approach of the state government towards the family planning program, more focus on sterilisation, skewed budget, lethargic and substandard health system are said to be major factors behind the huge jump in the unmet need of contraceptives.
Shockingly, the family welfare expenditure of Maharashtra declined over the years. As against Rs38.3 crore expenditure in 2010-11, the government spent only Rs33 crore in 2013-14, states the Economic Survey of Maharashtra which also reveals number of vasectomy and tubectomy were far more compared to spacing methods (intrauterine devices).
"There is no focus on family planning schemes any more. Though the government offers free contraceptives through its health facilities, our efforts are weak and grossly inadequate. Moreover, people are increasingly losing faith in the public health system," admitted a top health official.
"Government needs to strengthen its family planning program with more focus on spacing between the two children where more than half of the unmet need was observed," says Prof Fauzdar Ram, director of the IIPS.
Aggressive promotion of contraceptive methods, availability of choices, improvement in quality of services at public health centres, inclusion of social marketing companies for subsidised contraceptives instead of free services could address the issue more effectively, feel experts.
Health minister Dr Deepak Sawant said, "I am out of station today. I haven't seen the statistics and not in a possition to comment."
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