Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Nara Chandrababu Naidu has been appealing to families for more children to address the ageing population, which has become a significant concern for many countries worldwide. On the eve of the Sankranti festival, he once again addressed the issue during his two-day visit to his native village, Naravaripalli, near Tirupati.
Speaking to reporters at Naravaripalli, Naidu observed that several European countries—Japan, Korea, and others—have incentivized family planning policies. The total fertility rate in these countries has been abysmally low. As such, these countries are today battling concerns about their ageing population and have been inviting Indians to visit.
“This is a wake-up call for India, as we too have been incentivising the family planning concept and have been restricting families to having a limited number of children, as otherwise some years down the line India too will face the ageing population concerns, and we will be left with very little to do at that stage. But if we react to the situation with the right policies, India could have great demographic dividends by 2047,” CM expressed caution.
Pointing out that in the past, netas were barred from contesting the panchayat and local body polls if they had more children, Naidu stated that today we will have to formulate rules to prohibit netas with fewer children from contesting the elections.
In August last year, the TDP government scrapped the rule that barred people with more than two children from contesting the panchayat and local body polls in Andhra Pradesh.
After the Andhra Pradesh CM recently sparked a nationwide debate on the issue, his Tamil Nadu counterpart, MK Stalin, echoed Naidu’s views and urged the people of Tamil Nadu to bear more children.
While the two-child per family policy was strictly adhered to by all South Indian states, as evident from their total fertility rate of 1.73, which is well below the national average of 2.1, the TFR of the five big heartland states of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, and Jharkhand is 2.4, which is much higher than the national average.
The national population policy introduced in 2000 focused on contraception to bring down the TFR to replacement levels by 2010 and achieve a stable population by 2045. However, the national family health survey between 2019 and 2021 reported that the all-India TFR has already exceeded the replacement level of 2.1. This means that the nation’s population is no longer growing at a rate that would replace itself, which may eventually lead to a decline in the population over time.
