If you buy a movie ticket in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, it is likely you will be handed a condom, it was reported on Tuesday.
The district magistrate of Mirzapur, Amrit Abhijat, announced he passed the order as a new experiment to check population growth, the United News of India news agency reported.
Free condoms will also be available at petrol pumps, government-run grocery stores and counters where people pay telephone and electricity bills.
In India, discussing sex or condom usage in most societies is taboo. Many married couples don’t discuss contraception, which is often seen as something the wife will take care of. Given the aura of secrecy that surrounds sexual activity; most men are too shy to buy condoms from a pharmacy.
Various state governments and non-government organisations have tried to promote condom use by installing vending machines in public toilets or by making them available free of cost.
Last week, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s Bharatiya Janata Party decided population control would be the main issue for year-end state and parliamentary elections in 2004.
According to the National Commission on Population, India has a population of 1,03-billion, which has trebled in the last 50 years.
It is the second most populous nation in the world after China. – Sapa-DPA