India’s Total Fertility Rate declines to 2 at national level

New Delhi: India’s Total Fertility Rate (TFR), the average number of children per woman, has further declined from 2.2 to 2 at the national level and ranged from 1.4 in Chandigarh to 2.4 in Uttar Pradesh, as per a Health Ministry survey.

NITI Aayog’s Member, Health, Dr Vinod Kumar Paul, and Union Health and Family Welfare Secretary Rajesh Bhushan released the factsheets of key indicators on population, reproductive and child health, family welfare, nutrition and others for India and 14 States and UTs clubbed under Phase 2 of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) (2019-21).

The survey showed that all Phase 2 states have achieved replacement level of fertility (2.1) except Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Jharkhand, and Uttar Pradesh.

The survey has found that the overall Contraceptive Prevalence Rate (CPR) has increased substantially from 54 per cent to 67 per cent at all-India level and in almost all Phase 2 states/UTs with the exception of Punjab. The use of modern methods of contraceptives has also increased in almost all states and UTs.

The key indicator of the Health Ministry survey has revealed that the unmet needs of family planning have witnessed a significant decline from 13 per cent to 9 per cent at all-India level and in most of the Phase 2 states/UTs. The unmet need for spacing which remained a major issue in India in the past has come down to less than 10 per cent in all the states except Jharkhand at 12 per cent, and Arunachal Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh – both at 13 per cent.

The full immunisation drive among children aged 12-23 months has recorded substantial improvement from 62 per cent to 76 per cent at all-India level, underlined the survey. As many as 11 out of 14 states/UTs have more than three-fourth of children aged 12-23 months with fully immunisation and it is highest 90 per cent for Odisha.

On comparing the previous NFHS-4 and NFHS-5 data, the increase in full immunisation coverage is observed to be expeditious in many states and UTs. Over 50 per cent of Phase 2 states/UTs are sharing over 10 percentage points during the short span of 4 years.

The states/UTs which were surveyed in the Phase 2 are Arunachal Pradesh, Chandigarh, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi, Odisha, Puducherry, Punjab, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.

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