• A nominated MP aligned with the ruling BJP on Friday introduced a private member’s Bill in the Rajya Sabha, seeking to enforce a two-child norm by giving incentives for those adopting the small family practice and penalties for those contravening it.

About Population Regulation Bill, 2019:

• People with more than two living children should be “disqualified” from being chosen as an MP, MLA or a member of any body of the local self government after the commencement of the Act. Similarly, it suggests that government employees should give an undertaking that she or he will not procreate more than two children.
• It says those government employees who have more than two children on or before the commencement of the Act should be exempted.
• Other penalties include reduction in subsidies on loans and interest rates on savings instruments, reduction in benefits under the public distribution system, and higher than normal interest rates for availing loans from banks and financial institutions.

Analysis:

• According to UN population projections, India is expected to become the most populated country by 2050. This bill is intended to create a balance between people and the resources, human resources as well as natural resources.
• 72 districts in the country have a total fertility rate of more than four children per woman, and among them. There are many districts which are dominated by minorities. There is also a case of regional imbalance while the southern and western states are better off, in the northern and eastern states of India, birth control is either not accepted or not applied. So it is a multi-dimensional problem. Regional, resources, religion – all three factors are there.
• The provisions of the Bill also list out several benefits for Central and public sector enterprise employees who adopt the two-child norm “by undergoing sterilization operation himself or of the spouse.
• But there is fear that, by restricting the number of children that can be born, there will not be enough educated young people in the next generation to carry on India’s technological revolution.
• There are already well-documented problems with China’s one-child policy, namely the gender imbalance resulting from a strong preference for boys and millions of undocumented children who were born to parents that already had their one child. These problems risk being replicated in India with the implementation of their two-child policy.
• By interfering with the birth rate, India faces a future with severe negative population growth, a serious problem that most developed countries are trying to reverse. With negative population growth, the number of old people receiving social services is larger than the young tax base that is paying for the social services. In this case, taxes must be increased and young people risk contributing way more than they will receive in the future.