Implementation Plan for Uttar Pradesh Population Policy Gadde Narayana and K.M.Sathyanarayana (January 2002)  Full Document (English)      Order for free      email to me  For the first time in the country, four states have taken initiative on their own and formulated state specific population policies. Processes followed to prepare population policies varied from one state to another and also the strategies selected for achieving population stabilization within a stipulated time period within the broad framework of reproductive and child health programme. All the four states, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, tried to set realistic objectives, integrate family planning services with maternal and child health services, encourage informed choice, address gender issues and decentralize the programme implementation to a large extent. Processes followed to formulate the policies largely included preparation of background papers, consultations with a wide range of stakeholders including women, adolescent, non-government organizations and private sector, discussions within the department of health and family welfare and with other development departments and involvement of political leaders and policy makers from the beginning in policy development. Given the involvement of diverse groups in consultative processes, building consensus is a difficult, cumbersome and time-consuming process. It is to the credit of these states who selected a difficult path of consultative processes and consensus building to formulate policies than the usually employed short cut method of producing a confidential document and getting it formally approved by the Cabinet and then announcing to the world the arrival of new era. More often than not, policies formulated without openness and broad consensus failed at implementation stages although policies formulated with consultation processes do not automatically guarantee success without implementation plans and follow up with the help of strengthened and effective monitoring systems. This paper illustrates the way UP Government has converted UP Population Policy into an implementation plan.