A study on access and usage of Family-Planning methods among tribal women of Bankura District, Westbengal

Socioeconomic development of India is hampered due to its high population and high fertility rate. The situation is more miserable in case of scheduled tribe community due to their poor awareness level associated with financial constraints. Thus in this paper the researcher tried to assess and examine the awareness level as well as practice of family planning methods among the tribal women of Bankura District, West Bengal.

In this study, 358 tribal married women of reproductive age group (15 to 49 yrs) belong to Bankura district were selected as sample through purposive sampling technique. A semi-structured interview schedule used as a tool for data collection

The Study shows that 93.51% of total respondents knew at least any one method of family planning but only 43.85% of respondents used any contraceptives for limiting their family. Female sterilization (48.41%) was dominant as contraceptive method among the tribal women.

The study findings reveal that there is a gap between the knowledge and practices of family planning which need further detailed research to understand the causes of these differences to make family planning programme more acceptable to tribal community of Bankura.