PANJIM: The number of Goan
drinkers has gone up, while that of tobacco consumers has dropped. These are the findings of the National Family
Health Survey (NFHS) 2015-16 that interestingly reveal that a higher percentage
of women in rural areas consume alcohol against those in urban areas, but in
the case of men the trend is exactly opposite.
The survey, published in the
Economic Survey report 2015-16 and tabled during the ongoing Legislative
Assembly session, indicates that 44.7 percent men consume alcohol which is an
increase from 40 percent recorded during the 2005-06 NFHS. The percentage of
women consuming alcohol has also gone up from 2.1 percent a decade ago to 4.2
percent in 2015-16.
As per the survey, nearly
49.4 percent men from urban areas consume alcohol, while 37 percent are from
rural areas. On the other hand 4.4 percent of women in rural areas consume
alcohol as against 4.2 percent women from urban areas.
The NFHS, however, indicates
that the consumption of tobacco has gone down. While it was found that 4.4
percent women used any kind of tobacco in 2005-06, the percentage has dropped
to 1.9 in the latest survey.
In the case of men, 27.8
percent men used to consume tobacco of any kind during 2005-06, which has now
scaled down to 20.8 percent, which includes 22.1 percent from urban and 18.6
per cent from rural areas.
The survey has also examined
other indicators which show that 9.8 percent of women are married before the
age of 18, which is a drop from 11.7 percent recorded a decade back.
In another
revelation, male sterilisation adopted as a means of family planning has
completely vanished. No male has got sterilized while in 2005-06 there was a
marginal 0.1 percent males who had been sterilised.
