Sterilization: A Boon or Bane to "Growing" India?

To combat this rise of population, India's National Population Stabilization Fund has once again brought back the controversial, incentive-based sterilization, among other initiatives that aimed at reducing the birth rate. This pushed India to involve dangerous sterilization operations for women as the first, and sometimes the only option for population control. But, most of the women especially poor and illiterate ones from rural India often undergo operations unaware of the risks, consequences and alternatives involve in the entire process.

Cash rewards were given as incentives to those who undergo sterilization process under the Santushti scheme, which offers private sector payment of 15, 000 per operation. The hospitals and clinics were likely to get 500 extra per case if 30 cases are attended on a single day in a fixed facility.

Abhijit Das, head of an NGO Healthwatch Uttar Pradesh, said, “These factors make it more likely women will be denied their right to make informed choices about their medical care and increase the chances of surgical complications.”

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