India’s Progress beyond Demographic Indicators

S Irudaya Rajan and Udaya S Mishra write:

The National Family Health Survey (NFHS)-5 is the fifth in a row to offer population and health indicators for Indian states and districts. Having commenced in the early 1990s, over the three decades of periodic enquiry, the NFHS has not only facilitated gauging the trends in population and health para­meters, but also many other programme-related performance indicators. In fact, the most recently held monitoring exercise of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as well as the assessment of the Multidimensional Poverty Indices for the Indian states and its districts has been largely facilitated by the indicators offered by the latest NFHS. Given the significance and credibility of the indicators offered by consecutive rounds of the NFHS in monitoring the progress on the population and health fronts, the recently released NFHS-5 findings have brought out surprises on the attainment of various targets as well as the progress made on varied domains. Although a range of 131 indicators is offered by this survey, the indicators that received attention relate to the female population sex ratio, the attainment of replacement-level of fertility and the future of the population control policy.