INTRODUCTION Women remains one of the most under-served segments of the Indian population. An alarmed number of women who want to space or limit their families currently do not have access to or cannot afford or use appropriate means to do so. Although India was the first country to adopt family planning as a National programme during 1951-52, the demographic situation in the country is still a matter of grave concern. The low use of spacing methods is reflected in early child bearing and short birth intervals. Wherever, services exist, women are constrained for using the family planning methods by cultural mores or pressure to rebuild the population. A close association between family planning knowledge, attitude and behaviour was observed by Pandey and Singh (2001) which indicated that proper awareness of adequate means of family planning, its effectiveness and adequate source of information exercised positive impact on developing favourable attitude which motivated females to adopt family planning behaviour. However, the recent changes in the institution of family, education and economic independence of women have affected the traditional system and brought some structural changes in the status and role of women as a housewife in the family. The present study was conducted with an objective to study the extent of awareness of women with regard to family planning methods. MATERIAL AND METHODS A total of 150 respondents (of age 18 to 30 years), i.e. married women with first child upto the age of five years were randomly selected from two blocks, Naggar and Kullu, of district Kullu of Himachal Pradesh. A self-structured questionnaire was used to know about general information and awareness and knowledge regarding family planning methods. The data was collected through personal interview method by visiting each household. Means and percentages were used for analysis of data. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION The institution of marriage defines and circumscribes the life of a woman as wife, a mother and a house maker. Thus it is fairly common for both men and women to discuss family planning. Lack of time, education and awareness are deep- rooted constraints for women to perform their multi-dimensional role. As observed from Table 1, maximum number (67.3%) of women were in the age group of 18 to 25 years and majority of them were literate, housewives and belonged to nuclear families. Most of them (74%) were married at the age between 18 to 25 years and had their first child at the same age range. A study by Kaur and Pattanaik (1999) indicated that literacy in general and female literacy in particular exerted a strong influence on contraceptive use. Higher literacy promoted declines in fertility and child mortality. Awareness plays an important role in motivating females to have a favourable attitude towards family planning and to adopt family planning behaviour. In the present study majority of women knew about birth control measures and © Kamla-Raj 2005 J. Soc. Sci., 11(3): 249-251 (2005) Awareness Among Women Towards Aspects of Family Planning in Kullu District of Himachal Pradesh Bhawna Sharma, Shubhangna Sharma and Shipra Nagar Department of Human Development, College of Home Science, CSKHPKV, Palampur 176062, Himachal Pradesh, India E-mail: sn123plp@yahoo.com KEYWORDS Awareness; family planning; women; contraceptives ABSTRACT The present study was undertaken to know the extent of awareness among married women towards aspects of family planning. A total of 150 married women were randomly selected from two blocks of Kullu district of Himachal Pradesh. Data was collected through self-structured interview schedule. It was found that majority of respondents had knowledge and awareness about various aspects of family planning. Women were the major users of contraceptives as contrary to men. Oral pills were the most used family planning method followed by use of loops.