question_answer 4)

Do you think that reproductive health in our country has improved in the past 50 years? If yes, mention some such areas of improvement.  

Answer:

In our country, the reproductive health of the persons has improved in the past 50 years as evident in the following areas: (i) Birth rate is decreasing rapidly due to accepting of family planning measures by more and more people. Birth rate was 36 per 1000 persons in 1981, 30.5 per 1000 in 1991 and only 26 per 1000 in 2001 census. (ii) Due to better health care, the average life span of Indians has increased from 50 years in 1970-71 to 60.4 years during 1988-95 and then to 64 years in 2001. (iii) Due to control of several bacterial and viral diseases with the help of more and more effective antibiotics, medicines and surgical methods, there is rapid decline in death rate from 13.8 per 1000 in 1981 to 8 per 1000 in 2001. (iv) Due to sincere implementation of Reproductive and Child Health Care (RCH) programmes, both maternal mortality rate (MMR) and infant mortality rate (IMR) have greatly reduced.