Ranchi, Sept. 21: Jharkhand is ahead of the national average in use of condoms with common female partners. While the national average for the same is 74 per cent, for the state it is 80 per cent.

Even in the use of condoms with non-regular female partners, Jharkhand figures read better against those of the national.

While the national figure is just 39.8 per cent, it is as much as 63 per cent for Jharkhand.

The statistics were revealed at a programme titled, “Integrated approach and synchronised actions in promotion of use of condoms in Jharkhand”, organised by Jharkhand State AIDS Control Society (JSACS) at a city hotel today.

It focused on the popularisation of use of condoms among the rural population of the state. “But the state’s rural scenario needs to improve,” said Mathew Joseph, the state director of Population Services International, pointing at the figures projected by National AIDS Control Organisation (Naco).

The figure for Jharkhand is just 32 per cent as against 37.8 per cent on a national basis, he said.

In paid sex, too, the use of condoms here is 80 per cent as against 73.4 per cent national count.

In case of sex with non-regular sex partners, the state’s figure is, however, lesser than the national average of 41.8 per cent. It is merely 35 per cent.

He warned against spurious “foreign brand” condoms, which are actually made in India. “However, its market in Jharkhand is much less as compared to cities like Delhi,” he said before adding: “During a course of our survey, we found that there were holes in several such spurious condoms.”

There are about 50 lakh “eligible” couples in the state. In 2006-07, JSACS distributed as many as 45 million condoms, some through free distribution and the rest through social and commercial marketing. This year, it aims a 20 per cent increase in the figure.

The state needs as many as 47,811 outlets to distribute condoms against the present count of 15,337 outlets. “Apart from making condoms available to the rural people, the issue of removing social inhibitions is also an important task,” said Pradeep Kumar, the project director, JSACS.

He said as most of the advertisements promoting use of condoms were either in Hindi or English language, the common people could not understand them.

“Efforts, therefore, are being made to use local dialects in awareness drive for use of condoms,” he said.