Andhra Pradesh will be appointed as a consultant by the Centre for replicating its successes in population control in North Indian states where the growth remains high. The state was able to bring down the growth rate of population from 2.8 % to 1.2% in the last two years.

According to Prasanna Hota, Secretary, Family Welfare, Ministry of Health, the Centre would pay the AP government for its services as a national consultant. "Why should we pay WHO when the expertise lies within our country," he said.

Hota was speaking to the press after going round some PHCs in urban and rural areas to assess the impact of family welfare programmes in Andhra radish. He said the population in eight states in the Empowerment Action Group (also referred to as BIMARU), which accounted for 43% of the country's population, was continuing to grow at an alarming rate.

While describing AP as a role model in family welfare programmes, he conceded that the high rate of maternal mortality (1.5 per 1,000) and infant mortality (66 per 1,000) remained a matter of concern. He attributed this phenomenon to low rate of institutional deliveries, anaemia among pregnant women, lack of awareness about the importance of breast-feeding, unhygienic conditions and deficiency of iron and folic acid in mothers.

Hota has announced that the Centre would provide a health fund to panchayats over a five-year period to tackle these issues. The state government too must take various initiatives, including public-private partnership for optimum utilisation of hospital beds. He also disclosed that the Centre would sanction a sum of Rs 40 crore to AP for strengthening 'Sukhi Bhava,' a programme aimed at improving institutional deliveries in the state. At present the government is giving Rs 300 to the mother who delivers a child in a hospital, but this amount does not cover the surgery costs. Additional funds from the Centre will defray the surgical costs for women who undergo caesarean section.

Hota said he had drawn the attention of Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu and Health Minister Kodela Sivaprasada Rao to the widespread problem of anaemia among women in the state. Almost 90% of pregnant women in the state were anaemic, according to a study. He offered Central assistance for a pilot project for distribution of a nutritional supplement in the form of a chocolate that costs only 46 paise to adolescent girls suffering from anaemia.

In this connection, he said Hyderabad would be host to a partnership summit of the Global Action for Vaccination and Immunisation (GAVI) in November 2004 which would bring the city into international focus. Answering a question, Hota said it was not the literary rate, but political commitment that mattered in controlling the growth of population.