From promoting smaller families to encouraging couples to have more children, Andhra Pradesh government has taken a U-turn on population policy.
Not long ago, persons having more than two children were ineligible to contest the elections to the rural and urban local bodies in the state.
Now, the situation has reversed. Faced with falling TFR (Total Fertility Rate), the NDA government in the state is formulating a new population management policy that offers monetary incentives to couples to have more children.
As per the new policy, to come into effect from April 1, the government will give Rs 25,000 to couples for having a second or third child—a move that comes months after Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu urged people to have more children citing concerns over declining fertility, an ageing population and reduced Parliamentary representation for South India.
“Andhra’s TFR now stands at 1.5 as against the ideal 2.1 to maintain demographic balance. With the help of the new population management policy, we aim to increase the TFR to 2.1,” the Chief Minister told the Assembly.
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“Currently, about three lakh families have only one child, around 2.17 lakh families have two children, and nearly 62 lakh families have three or more children,” he said.
The Chief Minister said as economies grow, birth rates tend to decline, which can create workforce shortages and long-term demographic and economic challenges.
Calling his government’s move a “major policy intervention”, Naidu said: “Under the plan, parents who have a second child or more will receive Rs 25,000 at the time of delivery. Once, population was seen as a major problem and before 2004 we incentivised family planning. We even brought a law disqualifying those with more than two children from contesting local body elections. But today, there is a need to amend the law to allow those with more than two children to contest. A nation is not just about its land, regions, towns or borders, it is about its people.”
“During my first stint as Chief Minister (of the combined Andhra Pradesh from 1995 to 2004), I had strongly advocated a small family norm. But now, the country is projecting a different picture, and AP is no exception. The drop in population growth rate will create more problems, especially in the human resource segment,” Naidu pointed out. He explained how China, which once advocated a one-child policy, has now modified it and introduced a two-child norm.
"In the past, China and Japan followed stringent family planning due norms to check population growth. But now, the majority of their people are old and there is a huge shortfall in the number of young people. They have realised the problem and are now encouraging more child births,” he said.
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