NEW DELHI: The Bharatiya Janata Party MP from Gorakhpur Ravi Kishan will introduce a private member’s bill in the Lok Sabha today aimed at controlling the population.
The bill comes days after Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had expressed concern over the exploding population and population imbalance.
Speaking on World Population Day on July 11 in Lucknow, CM Yogi said that explosive growth in population is a matter of concern and steps must be taken to control the growth of the population.
He also emphasised that it must not happen that some communities are embracing the population control measures and others are not. He further emphasised that population imbalance gives rise to multiple problems in societies.
In July last year, the Uttar Pradesh State Law Commission put the draft of the population control bill in the public domain for comments, suggestions and discussion.
Titled the Uttar Pradesh Population (Control, Stabilization and Welfare) Bill, 2021, it listed measures to be taken to control the population. The bill stipulated enforcing the two-child norm. The draft bill had provisions barring people from getting government facilities for violating the two-child norm.
It had stringent provisions barring people from contesting polls, getting government subsidies and government benefits for violating the two-child norm.
Encouraging government employees to adopt the two-child norm, the bill said, “Public servants who adopt the two-child norm will get two additional increments during the entire service, maternity or as the case may be, paternity leave of 12 months, with full salary and allowances and three per cent increase in the employer’s contribution fund under the national pension scheme.”
The State Law Commission had invited suggestions from the public on the draft bill. The Opposition parties had criticised the draft bill calling it immature and agenda-driven.
The population of Uttar Pradesh is 24 crores which are expected to cross 25 crores soon.
On July 11 last year, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath unveiled the state’s population policy 2021-2030. The new policy aimed to bring the birth rate down to 2.1 per thousand population by 2026 from the current 2.7 per thousand and to 1.9 per thousand by 2030.