India has also committed that family planning shall be a central part of its efforts to ensure Universal Health Coverage.
The country's strategy to tackle family planning was announced at the 'Family Planning Summit' in London, where it said a comprehensive reproductive, maternal, neonatal and child health (RMNCH) strategy would soon be unveiled, to include adolescent health, with reproductive and sexual health as a central component.
In its presentation at the London Summit held yesterday, India said that Family Planning must not be viewed in isolation and a life cycle approach be taken to address the whole continuum of care including adolescent, maternal and child health.
India's new approach to family planning comes considering that 45 per cent of maternal deaths occur in the age group 15 to 25 years where 47 per cent of total fertility is also clustered.
"We are moving from limiting to delaying and spacing for wider health benefits," said Mission Director of National Rural Health Mission, while articulating India's stand on family planning.
The country's new strategy focuses on making contraceptives available at the doorstep through 8.6 lakh community health workers who are now going from house to house in rural India distributing contraceptives.
NGOs working in the field have felt that government's focus on achieving numerical targets for use of contraception, especially female sterilisation, has contributed to a coercive environment for several decades, and should not be replicated going forward. (MORE)