Chandigarh, July 19 : The city has added another feather to its cap by achieving the total fertility rate (TFR) of two children per couple target set by the Union Government in the National Population Policy (NPP), 2000.Though the deadline of 2010 is almost a year away, the UT has achieved the goal. “Chandigarh has scored the golden goal before the final whistle is blown,” says a report released by the union ministry of health on states that have achieved two children per couple target.
Besides Chandigarh, 11 states (Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, Goa, Himachal, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Punjab, Sikkim, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal) and two union territories (Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Puducherry) have also achieved the TFR target.
Thanks to the slew of initiatives taken by the UT administration in healthcare, health indices in Chandigarh have been consistently going up. Also, the use of family planning methods in the rural and urban areas of the city is 76 and 75.6 per cent, respectively.
Awareness about various contraceptive methods in Chandigarh stands at 86 per cent and efforts are being made to meet the demand for contraceptives.
The report, however, rues that states like Bihar, UP and MP would take another 15 to 20 years to achieve the TFR target. According to the National Commission on Population Estimates, by 2030, India is expected to overtake China in population figures. By 2016, Uttar Pradesh would account for 22 per cent of the country’s population while Bihar, MP and Rajasthan together would contribute another 22 per cent.
It states that if the NPP is fully implemented, one could anticipate a population of 1,107 million in 2010 instead of 1,162 million as projected by the technical group on population projections.
Wake-up call
It is anticipated that by 2050 India’s population would reach more than 1.5 billion and more than 1.853 billion at the close of the century. India is expected to become the first and the only country on the planet to have a population of more than two billion while China’s population is likely to drop after reaching the peak of about 1.46 billion in 2050, the report said.