Two-Child Policy To Control Population

Question by: Shri Adala Prabhakara Reddy, Dr. Beesetti Venkata Satyavathi, Shri Uday Pratap Singh

1. whether the Government intends to bring in a two child policy in the country in order to control rising population and if so, the details thereof;
2. if not, the reasons therefor; and
3. the details of other such measures being taken by the Government including bringing in a legislation to control rising population levels?

Answer by: The Minister of State in the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (Shri Ashwini Kumar Choubey)

• There is no such proposal of ‘two child policy’ under consideration at present.
• As per National Family Health Survey (NFHS) IV data for the period 2015-16, the Total Fertility Rate has declined to 2.2 from the earlier 2.7 in NFHS III for the period 2005-06. 28 out of 36 States/UTs have already achieved the replacement level fertility of 2.1 or less.
• Additionally, India is a signatory to the International Conference on Population and Development declaration (ICPD) held in Cairo in 1994, and in Nairobi in 2019, which advocates honouring of reproductive rights of couples to decide freely and responsibly the number and spacing of their children.

Measures undertaken under the National Family Planning Programme

• Expanded Contraceptive Choices: The current contraceptive basket comprising of Condoms, Combined oral contraceptive pills, Emergency contraceptive pills, Intrauterine contraceptive uterine device (IUCD) and Sterilization has been expanded with inclusion of new contraceptives namely Injectable contraceptive (Antara programme) and Centchroman (Chhaya).
• Post-partum Intra-uterine contraceptive device (PPIUCD) incentive scheme under which PPIUCD services are provided post-delivery.
• Compensation scheme for sterilization acceptors which provides compensation for loss of wages to the beneficiary and also to the service provider and team for conducting sterilisation.
• Scheme for Home Delivery of contraceptives by ASHAs at doorstep of beneficiaries has been taken up.
• Scheme for provision of Pregnancy Testing Kits in the drug kits of ASHA for use in communities.
• Family Planning Logistics Management Information System (FP-LMIS): Dedicated software has been launched to ensure smooth forecasting, procurement and distribution of family planning commodities across all the levels of health facilities.
• Mission Parivar Vikas has been introduced for substantially increasing access to contraceptives and family planning services in districts having TFR of more than 3.