Quality of Family Planning Services in India : the Users' Perspective

Abstract

Recognizing the urgency of containing its population, the Government of India has consistently increased the budget outlay for the family planning program with each Five-Year Plan from Rs. 6.5 million in its first five-year plan to Rs.65,000 million in the eighth five-year plan. However, this has had little impact on the country's birth rate, couple protection rate or births intervals, and has failed to achieve a growth rate below two per cent per annum. In fact, the growth rate has been stagnating over the past three decades and has become a matter of serious concern to the country's planners.