CM: Education to women can help contain population growth

PATNA: Bihar has made great strides in terms of health and women education, but the achievements in last few years have simultaneously opened the window of aspirations too. Speaking at a workshop on health, women and development organized by Population Foundation of India (PFI) and Asian Development Research Institute (ADRI) on Saturday, CM Nitish Kumar accepted it has become a real challenge to fulfil these aspirations.
The CM reiterated that only female education can help reduce the total fertility rate (TFR) of 3.4 in Bihar, the second highest in the country. TFR is defined as the total number of children born to a mother.
Many health experts earlier emphasized the need to plug the gaps in family planning in Bihar. But CM Kumar said today the discourse revolves on population stabilization, rather than family planning for population control. “This can only be achieved if girls start asserting their right on how many children they are going to bear, and this is possible only through education,” he said and added Cycle Yojana and Poshak Yojana have been the milestones of his tenure as CM.
Nitish said that talk of ‘demographic dividend’ is very common these days. “But if we do not have policies and programmes to channelize the energy of youths, instead of becoming a dividend, it becomes a challenge to tackle,” he said.
Earlier, PFI executive director Punam Muttreja said Bihar has a number of health and social problems which are preventing the state from realizing its full potential. Citing the last annual health survey, she said half of the girls are still married before the age of 18. In terms of family planning, Bihar performs poorly with only 37% couples using any method of family planning. The corresponding national average is 48%.
The intrastate variation in accessibility to health services is also grave in the state with the poor not able to afford health services, she said and added the state must increase its annual expenditure on health. At present, the state spends 2%-3% of its gross domestic product on health. She called for community-level audit of the health and social welfare schemes to ensure proper results.
ADRI member-secretary Shaibal Gupta said Bihar has not only attained the highest growth rate in the country in last few years but also invested heavily in social sector. Reservation for women in panchayati raj institutions, Mukhyamantri Balika Yojana, setting up of Jeevika, creation of self-help groups and gender budgeting exercises are some of the examples. Reducing the state’s Infant Mortality Rate and Maternal Mortality Rate, bringing down anaemia among women and better sex ratio are the key targets in state’s Manav Vikas Mission, he said.