The National Family Health Survey's (NHFS-5) finding that total fertility rate (TFR) has fallen from 2.2 to 2.0 busts the population explosion myth and shows that India must steer away from coercive measures of population control, the Population Foundation of India said.

The fall in TFR -- the average number of children per woman -- is a significant feat, PFI Executive Director Poonam Muttreja said a day after the Union Health Ministry released the complete set of findings from the fifth round of the NFHS, the most comprehensive data on health and family-welfare issues. The findings cover 11 states and three union territories that were not included in the first set of data released in December 2020. The national-level figures were calculated using data from phase one and phase two of NHFS-5.