50% marriages in Rajasthan state occur before 18 years

According to the UNICEF report, State of Child 2009, 45% of marriages in India involve women less than 18 years.

50% marriages in Rajasthan state occur before 18
23 Jan 2009

AJMER: Nearly 50% marriages in the state take place before couples attain the age of 18. Every year the population of the state is increasing by 18 lakh. To curb the rapid growth of population, the government has to take major steps to check the implementation of family planning.

This was stated by the advisor of National Population Control Programme and former chief secretary of Tamil Nadu, T V Antony here on Thursday. He directed the officers to take sterilization programme seriously in their respective districts. Antony was addressing the meeting of National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) of four districts of Ajmer range on Wednesday in Ajmer.

“The action would be taken against those private hospitals who are not giving incentives to those who are bringing the cases for sterilization,” said Antony.

He said that more and more incentives should be given to propagate the merits of sterilizations. He asked the administration to “take bold steps against those who are not serious about this programme.” He directed to the officers that highlight the demerits of high population growth in their areas so that people become aware about population control measures. “We have to bring population growth rate of Rajasthan from 18 to 11 lakh and without this, we could not control the growth of population in India,” said Antony.

Similarly Antony directed to start help desks in all hospitals. “That would help the patients of Below Poverty Line (BPL) to get medication in hospitals,” said Antony. According to him if a BPL patient forgets to bring his card, he could get the medication by seeing his number on computer screen. “The duty of help desk is to carry the patient to the specific department where he requires a treatment,” added Antony. On the issue of government dispensaries run by NGOS in slum areas of the state, Antony said that “check them regularly whether they are running according to the norms or not and take action against those NGOS who are violating the rules.” He said that Rajasthan is still performing poor in controlling the mortality rate.

Meanwhile, health principal secretary R K Meena give the performance report of the division and the programme run for controlling population in Ajmer, Tonk, Nagaur and Bhilwara. Director of NRHM, V Shrinivas provided the family welfare programmes taken by the Central government.