'Counter-Productive': MoS Health Says No Two-Child Policy Under Consideration

Pawar's statement assumes importance amid the introduction of two-child policy proposals in UP and Assam.

Minister of State for Health Bharati Pravin Pawar. 

Photo: Altered by The Quint

Minister of State for Health Bharati Pravin Pawar on Friday, 23 July, acknowledged a question regarding a two-child policy in the Lok Sabha, saying that the government was not considering any such proposal.

Responding to a question by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Uday Pratap Singh, Pawar stated in a written reply:

"International experience shows that any coercion or diktat to have a certain number of children is counter-productive and leads to demographic distortions like sex-selective abortions, abandonment of the female child, and even female infanticide to intense son preference."

Bharati Pravin Pawar, according to The Indian Express

Pawar's statement assumes importance amid the introduction of two-child policy proposals in BJP-ruled states of Uttar Pradesh and Assam.

Pawar's reply further read,

"States like Kerala, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, and other states/UTs have succeeded in reducing the fertility rate by adopting a holistic approach towards family planning without resorting to any stringent population control measures."

Elaborating on why a policy was not in the pipeline, she wrote that the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development, Cairo, 1994, to which India is a signatory, strictly opposes coercion in family planning.

Providing past statistics and measures, she added that services provided under National Family Planning Programme (NFPP) including Mission Parivar Vikas, expanded contraceptive choices, compensation scheme for sterilisation acceptors, post-partum intrauterine contraceptive device incentive scheme have aided in bringing the total fertility rate down to 2.2 percent in 2015-16.

(With inputs from The Indian Express)