Extensive consultations held in a series of meetings across the country under the auspices of the Family Planning Association of India, have pitched for a rights-based approach for family planning.
In a country that adds about 18 million people every year, and where stark inter-state variations exist in statistics, there is a need to improve the quality of services.
The various stakeholders that participated in the consultations in 13 states, including 448 representatives from civil society groups, and 167 government officials and functionaries, agreed that the imperative was to expand the basket of contraceptive choices available to Indians.
Since the 1970s when sterilisation programmes, often forced, created much furore among the people, India has subdued its family planning policies to make them a part of the overall reproductive health care measures.
"Programmatically, family planning has tended to focus on sterilisation, typically female sterilisation to the detriment of reversible methods such as condoms, oral contraceptives and intrauterine devices," said a statement from civil society organisations after the consultations.
The groups pitched for a "focused programme" that would address the reproductive needs of the vast population.
Meeting the family planning needs of the population, they said, will require unprecedented political commitment and resources from the government, donors, as well as the private sector.
The effort would also require an individualised focus on the special needs of diversified groups such as adolescents and young people, divorced and single individuals, among others.
Next month, London will host a family planning summit where recommendations from these consultations will help define India's approach to the issue.
Among the recommendations are increasing the access of young people to family planning resources, expansion of the access through more choices, integration of family planning, Maternal Child Health (MCH) and HIV and Family Planning through a gender and rights' perspective.
"Through (these consultations) we want our voices to reach and reflect at the Global FPA Summit, which is scheduled in July, 2012 in London," said Vishwanath Koliwad, Secretary General, FPA India.
According to Geeta Sen, Professor at the Centre for Public Policy, an estimated 12.5 per cent of women in India want to delay or avoid a pregnancy but are not using an effective method of family planning.
