Translation of policy to action: national population policy implementation in Madhya Pradesh

Abstract

Indian population program has seen several changes since its inception in 1952. The decade of nineties witnessed a paradigm shift in the population program, when a centralized target-fixing approach was changed to target-free approach based on actual needs of the clients. This paradigm shift got reflected in the national population policy framed in 2000. The policy document stressed on several factors affecting the population increase like gender equity, women empowerment etc. and did not confine itself to family planning program alone. The policy affirmed its commitment to voluntary and informed choice and consent of the citizens while availing reproductive services. The state of Madhya Pradesh came out with its own population policy a little before national policy. While the projections in the state policy may differ from national policy, the strategies have been very much similar in both policies. As the population program in India has largely been run by the government network only, the role of service providers becomes crucial in implementation of the policy. However, it has been observed that after nearly four years of policy formulation in Madhya Pradesh, the service providers do not seem to be competent enough to implement the paradigm shift in the policy. They still prefer to work in the old style where targets for family planning are fixed from the top. Though the policy mentions various key initiatives and service providers are aware of such initiatives involving gender equity, women empowerment etc., they hardly try to promote them in the field and their work is confined to motivating more and more people to adopt sterilization. The service providers are neither skilled enough to convey right information about various family planning methods nor they are willing to do so. The training programs for skill upgradation have hardly been able to achieve their objectives. Thus the commitment of the National Population Policy toward voluntary and informed choice of citizens is yet to be achieved in Madhyaa Pradesh.