The Centre for Policy Research has a knack of selecting issues of national importance, investigating them in all aspects and bringing out policy implications for the benefit of planners and practitioners. The focus of this publication is on one such issue of great national significance i.e. people’s participation in family planning without which there is no guarantee that the programme will succeed in future.
The authors have critically examined the issue of people’s participation in family planning and have come up with specific suggestions and policy options which need to be considered promptly and seriously. Despite our pronouncements, the national programme of family planning remains central and centralized by nature in that funds and targets are allocated from the top and callous bureaucratic efforts are made to achieve the targets by hook or by crook. Neither people and their representatives, nor their organizations and leaders are involved in motivational and delivery aspects of the programme in a true sense of the term.