The main focus of this paper is to understand the factors influencing the place of delivery, and why women preferring home deliveries in rural areas though a large number of health institutions such as subcentres, primary health centres and community health centres exists. To highlight these dimensions a study was conducted in three districts of Karnataka state. The respondents for the study were women who had had at least one child during last three years. The study finds that though primary health care services have expanded in recent years, deliveries conducted in health institutions or deliveries assisted by trained personnel are very few. Over half the deliveries are unsafe. Several factors have contributed to this phenomenon. They are: time of delivery, illiteracy, economic conditions of women, customs of natal home, transportation and place of stay of health workers. Moreover, most health centres do not have women medical officers in position, and the lack of staff and inadequate facilities at subcentres and hospitals is an important factor as well. Nearly half the infants died due to maternal causes among women who had deliveries at home. The causes of infant death are: premature delivery, infection in the umbilical cord, being accidentally hit on the head while delivery, breach presentation, severe anaemia of mother, etc. These problems could be easily solved if women are provided with good antenatal services, adequate rest and nutrition during pregnancy and counselled to deliver at health institution. Therefore, one has to promote institutional deliveries to reduce perinatal and neonatal mortality rate. Also there is need to strengthen the dai training programme as a traditional dai would be easily accessible to women in rural areas.

The quality of family planning health services can be improved only if these are meas ured and monitored. The recent strategy of abolition of targets for family planning was based on the expectation that it would help health workers to improve the quality of services. A study in two districts of Karnataka before and after the abolition of targets showed some positive signs as regards the quality of health in family planning services, including improvement in peoples' attitudes toward primary health centres.

Age at marriage' is not only a crucial but also a decisive variable in limiting family size and fertility level. There is an inverse correlation between age at marriage and fertility level. If age at marriage increases, fertility level would decline. In order to examine this relationship, the present study has collected data from households of Yerava tribe in Kodagu district of Karnataka. A sample of 10 tribal colonies was selected on the basis of a stratified sampling procedure. A total of 250 households were selected on the principle of randomness. A pre-tested schedule was used to collect data from an adult member of each household. The data have been used to examine the prevailing age at marriage and opinion about the marriageable age among the people of Yerava tribe. It has been found that a majority of them are aware of the legally prescribed minimum age for marriage. However, Yeravas prefer to marry their sons and daughters as they reach adulthood. It has been found that the legally prescribed minimum age at marriage predominantly prevails among Yeravas.