'Not contemplating any legislative measures to control population': Centre

NEW DELHI: Even as a few ruling party MPs, including a cabinet minister, have raised the issue of introducing a population control bill, the Union Health Ministry on Tuesday said they are not considering any “legislative measure” in this regard.

To a written question by Kerala MP John Brittas in the Rajya Sabha, the Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare Bharti Pravin Pawar said, “the government is not contemplating any legislative measures.”

She said the government's efforts have been successful in controlling the population growth in the country. 

She said the government had accorded top priority to the National Family Planning Program, guided by the tenets of the National Population Policy 2000 and National Health Policy 2017, to address the unmet need for Family Planning to attain Population Stabilization by 2045. 

She said due to the efforts, the total fertility rate (TFR) declined to 2.0 in 2019-21, as per the National Family Health Survey- 5), which is below replacement level.

31 out of 36 states and union territories have achieved replacement level fertility, as per NFHS-5, she said.

Quoting the survey, she said modern contraceptive usage has increased to 56.5 per cent.

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The unmet need for family planning is only 9.4%, while the crude birth rate (CBR) has declined to 19.7 in 2019.

The voices for a population planning bill were raised again after a United Nations report projected that India would overtake China as the world’s most populous country by next year. The report, released last week, said by 2050, India’s population will reach 166. Eight crores, surpassing China’s population at 131.7 crores.

Despite the union health ministry denying the move, several states, including UP, MP, Karnataka, Uttarakhand, Tripura, and Assam, are considering laws to control the population growth. 

Last year, the UP Law Commission submitted a draft of the Uttar Pradesh Population Bill to incentivise families to follow a two-child norm.

Union Minister Prahlad Singh Patel in June had also said that India would soon have a law for population control. He introduced a private bill on population control in 2016. He is not the only one. Rajya Sabha MP Rakesh Sinha, in July 2019, introduced a private member bill in the house in this regard.