The Centre will at last address the gender imbalance in family planning by launching campaigns targeting men to get them to understand their role in keeping population growth in check.Mindful of the negligible male participation in family planning programmes, the Centre also intends to "repopularise" vasectomies. Ninety-seven per cent of the sterilisations in the country are female procedures such as tubectomy.The reconstituted National Commission of Population, headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, will be meeting on Saturday after a five-year gap. It will discuss focusing on men as a strategy to stabilise population.The Centre plans to focus its awareness and education campaigns on men, making them aware of the importance of limiting family size. It will emphasise the health, nutritional and educational benefits of having fewer children, or of keeping an adequate space between them.The agenda for the meeting says the Centre feels the non-participation of men in family planning is "closely connected to the gender issue". It says vasectomies, especially no-scalpel vasectomy (NSV), need to be popularised as a "safe, simple, painless procedure, more convenient and acceptable to men".The Government plans to educate and train medical professionals at all levels in NSV. "There is a need to ensure that NSV and all emerging techniques and skills are included in the syllabi, together with abundant practical training. Medical graduates and all those participating in "in service" education and training will be equipped to handle this intervention,’’ the agenda says.The Government aims to provide one trained person at every Public Health Centre. About 1,354 doctors have already been trained under an UNFPA project between 1998-2002; another 1,000 were trained in 2004-05.Saturday’s meeting will be attended by around 40 VIPs, including the Union Health Minister, the Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission and the Chief Ministers of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Bihar, Jharkhand, Kerala and Tamil Nadu.
