India’s family planning programme is almost 70 years old. But India is yet to achieve replacement level of fertility. A gap between the expressed favourable attitude towards the small family norms and knowledge and practice of contraception has been observed amongst the Indian couples. Constant efforts to reduce fertility by increasing the couples protection rate in India has not only caused a shift in the approach of the Family Welfare Programme from cafeteria to target oriented but also a large scale programme failure. As a result, the policy has failed to motivate the young couples with fewer children to choose appropriate modern spacing methods and serve the needs of all couples at different stages of their reproductive life. The needs of the couples are observed to differ at community and regional level. Moreover, the reproductive intensions and choice of contraception of couples vary by place of residence too.