The best things in life are not always free and India's health officials say cheap condoms, not freebies, are the best way to control population growth.
Past battles to slow the increase in India's population, now more than one billion, have seen mailmen giving free condoms to young couples, but there is a growing view that affordable products with tantalizing names such as Bliss attract buyers.
"Nobody attaches significance to a free supply," a Health Ministry official said. "If I charge for it, you'll use it better."
Industry experts say that in some places around 75 per cent of condoms are wasted when given away.
While India is trying to cope with a population explosion, it is also facing a challenge in combating AIDS, with the United Nations estimating the number of HIV-infected people in India at 3.7 million. Condoms are vital in this battle as well.
India's birth-control planners promote a wide variety of contraceptive methods, but pills and condoms are key tools. Both are sold through "social marketing," which involves using private-sector companies or aid agencies to promote products aimed at achieving social goals.
In the case of birth control, this means branding and marketing condoms and pills with catchy names and distribution strategies, and getting a subsidized price for them.
Subsidized condoms boast brand names meant to attract users such as Mauj (enjoyment), Bliss, Pick Me and Masti (fun). These ape the marketing of well-known brands such as Kama Sutra, a private-sector label targeting upscale users named after an ancient Indian treatise on sexual technique.
Plans are now afoot to add to the government's three out-of-order condom vending machines with a nationwide network guaranteeing privacy for shy purchasers.
The Health Ministry still has a free distribution scheme for condoms. But it fell to 624.4 million in 1999-2000 from 891.2 million in 1995-1996 while comdoms distributed under social marketing rose to 472.9 million from 162.92 million as the program, launched in 1968, gathered momentum.
Variants of the Nirodh brand made by state-run Hindustan Latex Ltd. are repackaged and sold by 10 agencies. Birth-control pills for women are sold under the Mala D brand name.
Social marketing helps traders get profit margins, while sellers are free to price and brand the condoms as long as they are above the cost of the Nirodh brand and below the commercial prices of private condom makers.
K. Gopalakrishnan, head of Janani, an aid agency that distributes condoms, said the government buys the condoms at around 1.5 rupees (five cents) each and provides them to non-government organizations and sellers at 0.25 rupees. The consumer buys the product for around 0.67 rupees.
Typically, private groups use the surplus for promotions. "Advertising is almost 50 per cent of the budget," Mr. Gopalakrishnan said. Lately, these groups or social-marketing agencies have added the aim of AIDS control in promoting condom sales, although "the main chunk is for birth control," he added.