With male sterilisation figures refusing to pick up, the Rajasthan government has now written to the district collectors to encourage men to adopt sterilisation as a family planning method after they have two or more children.
Like elsewhere in India, vasectomy levels are extremely low in Rajasthan too. Of the 3 lakh sterilisations in 2013-2014, only 1.2 per cent vasectomies were performed, compared to 98 per cent tubectomies.
“We have seen in the past wherever district collectors have taken interest, vasectomy figures have shown an increase,” according to G.D. Laddha, Project Director Family Welfare. Hence, they have written to the district collectors to take interest in encouraging men to come forward for vasectomy, he said.
Gap between births Rajasthan has a total fertility rate (TFR) of 2.9 with 13 per cent unmet need for delaying and spacing childbirth. Unmet need for spacing is 7.3 per cent, while 5.8 per cent couples who want to delay childbirth do not have access to a contraceptive. As per the Annual Health Survey 2012-13, the contraceptive coverage is 62 per cent with modern methods, while about 7.5 per cent prefer or depend on traditional methods like herbs, abstinence and withdrawal.
While the overall male sterilisation is less than 0.4 per cent, more than 47 per cent women undergo tubectomy as a permanent method of family planning. Condom continues to be the most used method at 10.5 per cent, Copper-T and IUCD is used by only 1.3 per cent women who are in their reproductive age group and pills by 2.3 per cent. The use of emergency contraceptive pills is rather uncommon with only 0.1 per cent opting for this.
Pressure on women “Male sterilisation is a challenge because of myths attached to it. There is pressure on women to undergo tubectomy,” admitted J.P. Singhal, Director Family Welfare. There have been occasions when the figure has gone up but we need to create awareness about non-scalpel vasectomy, he said adding that efforts were being made to involve local community leaders and public representatives in doing this.
Of the over 3 lakh sterilisations in the last financial year, 2.98 lakh were tubectomies and just about 3,768 vasectomies. This year also, of the 81 sterilisation camps organised in which 74,428 sterilisations were performed, 73,566 were tubectomies while 862 were vasectomies.
Figures made available by the Health Department show no male got vasectomy done in Jhalawar though close to 300 women got tubectomies. In Karauli, Bundi, and Dungarpur one male each has got vasectomy in each district respectively followed by Jhalore, Barmer and Pratapgarh with two each.
Ganganagar topped the achievement list by achieving 50 per cent of the expected number of sterilisations, even though the vasectomy and tubectomy ratio remained skewed with 46 men and 5034 women getting sterilised. This was followed by Bikaner with 42 men and 4556 women. The worst performer was Dholpur where only 1.16 per cent of the expected people turned up for sterilisation which included just three men and 145 women. Sawai Madhopur was a shade better where five men got themselves sterilised as against 124 women
Men did come out in a substantially higher number in Churu (180), Jaipur (129), Jhunjhunu (94) and Udaipur (62).
