At current health budgets, India will miss the family planning goal it pledged it will reach at FP2020, the global partnership for protection of reproductive rights of women and girls.The country needs to significantly raise its budget for family planning to meet the FP2020 pledge of covering 48 million new users by that year. A new study by the Population Foundation of India (PFI), which works on development issues, shows that India needs to spend about Rs 15,800 crore from 2013 to 2020 to meet the commitment.“Any gaps would cost the country dearly in terms of high maternal and infant mortality and morbidity, and poor child health resulting from badly spaced pregnancies,” PFI says. India has the highest global burden of neonatal mortality contributing 20 per cent of deaths annually.Eight Empowered Action Group states of Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand as well as Assam and Himachal Pradesh need more focus, the study says.At current health budgets, India will miss the family planning goal it pledged it will reach at FP2020, the global partnership for protection of reproductive rights of women and girls.The country needs to significantly raise its budget for family planning to meet the FP2020 pledge of covering 48 million new users by that year. A new study by the Population Foundation of India (PFI), which works on development issues, shows that India needs to spend about Rs 15,800 crore from 2013 to 2020 to meet the commitment.“Any gaps would cost the country dearly in terms of high maternal and infant mortality and morbidity, and poor child health resulting from badly spaced pregnancies,” PFI says. India has the highest global burden of neonatal mortality contributing 20 per cent of deaths annually.Eight Empowered Action Group states of Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand as well as Assam and Himachal Pradesh need more focus, the study says.
Source:The Tribune
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