The District Level Household Survey-III, which was conducted in 28 districts covering 26,145 households, highlighted that male sterilisation is still at 1.7 per cent even though the Health department went on a non-scalped vasectomy spree last year. Only 14.2 per cent Community Health Centres (CHC) have an obstetrician and gynaecologist; 11.6 per cent Primary Health Centres (PHC) have a woman medical officers; and 36.6 per cent have neo-natal facilities.

The Population Research Centre (PRC), Vadodara, directly functions under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and had conducted the survey in Gujarat and Rajasthan for the year 2007-08. NGOs like Taleem and Institute of Health, Jaipur, have assisted PRC-Vadodara in carrying out the survey in both the states.

“The PRC has covered 26,145 households, which is nearly 8,000 households in each district. Earlier, DLHS-II was carried out in 2002-04. The present survey shows only 2 per cent rise in households adopting family planning methods, which substantiates the slackness at the information, education and communication programme implemented by the government,” said DLHS-III advisor N P Das.

“Nearly 59.2 per cent households had adopted family planning norms in 2002-04, while DLHS-III survey shows that 61.6 per cent households have adopted them this time. There has been only 0.3 per cent rise in male sterilisation and awareness about sexually transmitted diseases among women has decreased to 18.2 per cent in comparison to previous years,” said Das.

The survey has found that the family planning methods have been poorly promoted by the government. Only 4.5 per cent males prefer to use condoms, i.e. 3 per cent in the rural and 8.8 per cent in the urban areas. Although the state government has been boasting about the success of Chiranjeevi Yojana, 19.7 per cent (one-third of the total population of girls) are married below the age of 18 years. While institutional delivery has risen by 4.3 per cent (52.2 per cent in 2002-04 to 56.5 per cent in 2007-08), safe delivery has decreased to one per cent in comparison to the previous year. The reason: delivery by skilled health personnel had decreased to 8.4 per cent in 2007-08 from 20.8 per cent in2002-04.