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The findings from 5th National Family Health Survey(NFHS) suggests various improvements in India.

Findings of the report

• A greater proportion of births than ever before is now happening in institutions, more children in the 12-23 months age group have received their vaccinations.
• Replacement ratio of TFR: India has achieved a total fertility rate(TFR) of 2.0, dropping further from the figure of 2.2 during NFHS-4, indicating that India has contained the population explosion.
• Achievements of various Policies: some even coercive, as in the case of the family planning sector, seem to have borne fruit, years after they were implemented.
• Sex Ratio at birth: While gender ratio has, for the first time, recorded more women per 1,000 men, gender ratio at birth in the last five years still underlines the persistence of a deep-rooted son preference, one that has to be countered, through policy and law.

Way Forward:

• Need for building resilient and fortified systems capable of delivering in the most trying circumstances.
• State-level indices are also released, to provide comparisons, but also to allow States to launch course correction, or to be inspired by success stories in other regions.
• Inputs on marriage and fertility, family planning, access to education and health services are provided by the NFHS, arguably second only to the exhaustive data that the decennial population census throws up.
• Centre too must not treat it as a mere stocktaking exercise, but harness the opportunities the NFHS provides for launching reform or re-assessing certain policies without using it as a political tool in a federal set up.