Q.Describe the shift from a "target-based" to a "Target-Free Approach" in India's family welfare programme.

India's family planning programme moved away from fixed numerical targets in 1996 toward voluntary, need-based reproductive and child healthcare.

In its early decades, India's family planning programme emphasised a target-based

approach, setting numerical targets for contraceptive adoption and sterilisation. This approach

was widely criticised as too rigid and, in places, coercive.

From 1996, it was formally replaced by a Target-Free Approach, shifting the emphasis

away from fixed numerical quotas toward need-based reproductive and child healthcare delivered

through voluntary, informed choice. This is also reflected in the programme's own renaming from

narrow "family planning" to the broader Family Welfare framing, which covers maternal and …