Family Planning

The Family Planning Programme in India is a crucial component of the nation’s comprehensive strategy for socio-economic growth. It aims to foster an aspiration for a better quality of life among individuals while providing essential means for economic and social improvement. The programme is entirely voluntary and relies on its inherent appeal to draw people, especially those in villages, to the extensive network of primary health centres and sub-centres offering health, family planning, nutrition, and related services.

Officially launched in 1952, the programme initially focused on clinics during the First and Second Five-Year Plans. However, the Third Plan shifted towards a community-based extension education approach, emphasizing the expansion of services to meet the rising demand. This community-based strategy continued into the Fourth Plan, encouraging non-governmental organizations and voluntary bodies with incentives and financial support to extend the programme’s reach to the masses, transforming it into a mass movement.

Under the current plan, integrated health, family planning, and allied services have been incorporated into the ‘minimum needs programme,’ prioritizing rural and backward areas. Research has been intensified in bio-medical, motivational, and other areas to develop new contraceptive methods and devices, identify specific demographic challenges, and design effective strategies and campaigns.

Today, over 80,000 medical and other personnel are involved in the programme. In rural areas alone, there are more than 5,300 primary health centres (one for every block) and over 35,000 sub-centres (one for every 10,000 people). Urban areas also benefit from hospitals, dispensaries, and numerous family welfare and postpartum centres. These centres offer a comprehensive package of family planning services, including sterilization, IUDs, and conventional contraceptives.

The Central Government finances the programme, while implementation is managed by the State Governments. The Central Family Planning Council, chaired by the Union Minister of Health and Family Planning, oversees policy formulation and implementation supervision.

India has approximately 104 million couples in the reproductive age group (wives aged 15-45). Currently, around 19 percent of these couples use some form of contraception voluntarily. The birth rate has decreased from 41.7 per thousand in 1961 to 34.5 per thousand in 1974. The target for the Fifth Plan is to reduce it further to 30 per thousand, requiring about 35 percent of eligible couples to adopt family planning methods.

As part of the National Population Policy, family planning has been prioritized in the national agenda, placed at the core of all development activities as a vital component of socio-economic growth. The programme is gaining momentum, with increasing public acceptance, and there is optimism that the birth rate target of 30 per thousand set for the Fifth Plan will be achieved.

The Indian Posts and Telegraphs Department is privileged to support the family planning cause by issuing a commemorative stamp, emphasizing the importance and progress of this national initiative.