Population Control Bill 2019
This Research Paper is authored by Abhay Kumar, a Third Year B.A LL.B (Hons.) Student at Lloyd Law College and Co-authored by Advocate Shriya Mishra.
Abstract
This paper talks about Population Control Bill 2019. This article has an introduction part that introduced the when the bill came up and was signed by 125 Members of Parliament (MPs) and is yet to become an Act of law. Does this paper especially talk about the What the Population Control Bill says? And what is the role of the bill in the society? This paper has so many things along with the report and survey of the East Asia Forum report. This report compares the data and collection of information with a different population of the countries. At last, we have the conclusion of the paper.
Key Words: – Population Control Bill, East Asia Forum report, water and food, growth,
Introduction
The Population Control Bill, 2019 (or, the Population Regulation Bill, 2019) which was introduced in the Rajya Sabha in July 2019 by Rakesh Sinha. The bill aims to control India’s population growth. According to the World Population Prospect 2019 report by the United Nations, India’s population is set to overtake China within a decade. The bill was signed by 125 Members of Parliament (MPs) and is yet to become an Act of law[1].
On 7 February 2020, the Constitution (Amendment) Bill, 2020[2] was introduced in the Rajya Sabha by Shiv Sena MP Anil Desai. Desai proposed to amend Article 47A of the Constitution of India.
The state will promote small family norms by offering incentives to its people in taxes, employment, education, etc., which limit their family to two children and will withdraw each concession and those who do not follow the norms of small family Will be deprived of such incentives, to keep the growing population under control.
This bill proposes to introduce a two-child per couple policy and which aims to adopt it through various measures such as educational benefits, taxation cuts, home loans, free healthcare, and better employment opportunities. The 2019 bill proposed by Sinha talks of introducing penalties for couples who do not follow the two-child policy, such as exemption from contesting elections and ineligibility for government jobs.
What does the Population Control Bill say?
this bill talks about the “The Act may be called as Population Control Act, 2016 and it extends to the whole of India[3]“.
This Act states that no person shall procreate more than two living children after one year from the commencement of this Act.
India’s population rises day by day.
According to the East Asia Forum report, in 2050, India’s population is projected to be 1.69 billion which will be high. India’s population will rise higher in the future and it may cross China’s populations in the future.
The population of China is estimated to be 1.31 billion in 2050.
Demand for water and food to rise day by day
The global demand for water in India 2050 is projected to be more than 50 percent of what it was in 2000. According to the East Asia Forum report, the demand for food will double in the year 2050 and even if India manages to feed its expanding population, its growth may not be ecologically sustainable.
Heavily criticized the one-child policy in China
We found that China’s one-child policy has been criticized and against human dignity as well as against human rights. As per the report of the East India Forum.it has been improved and controlled the nation’s population by a possible 400 million people.
in the 2015 report by IBTimes which said that the policy was scrapped over government concerns of the country’s aging population that could slow economic growth.
According to the East India Forum report 2050, nearly 440 million people in China will be over 60 years of age[4].
The ruling party of China has been coming up with the one-child policy and allowed couples in the country to have up to two children.
What is special about the report?
According to an East India Forum report, in the year 2019, India has a population of about 1.37 billion and China has 1.43 billion[5]. By 2050, India’s total population will cross the figure of 1.64 billion. By then, 2 billion people will be added to the global population and this will increase from 7.7 billion in 2019 to 9.7 billion, this rate increases very fast day by day.
The report also underlined that there will be a large number of youths in India during this period, but in the absence of necessary natural resources to meet the basic needs of such a large population like food, shelter, medicine, and education in India. Will be the biggest challenge for us. High fertility rates, increasing numbers of elderly, and increasing migration have been cited as some of the major causes of population growth.
Recently the United Nations has released a report called The World Population Prospects 2019: Highlights according to which India will become the most populous country in the world, beating China by 2027.
India is included in the list of countries with the Intermediate-fertility group, which comprise 40 percent of the world’s population.
Between 2019 and 2050, India will increase 273 million of the world’s total population.
Effect of population growth
The population in India is not growing uniformly. According to the latest National Family Health Survey (NFHS), there is a variation in the total fertility rate (TFR) based on wealth and wealth. It is 3.2 children per woman in the poorest group, 2.5 children per woman in the middle group, and 1.5 children per woman in the higher group. This shows that population growth is more visible among the economically weaker sections of society.
Population growth hinders the problem of poverty, hunger, and malnutrition effectively and provides better health and quality education. This is adversely affecting the Millennium Development Goals (SDG) numbers 1, 2, 3, and 4.
Demographic Dividend There is a large number of youths in India who are burdened with unskilled, unemployed services and facilities and their contribution to the economy is minimal. For any country, its young population is a demographic dividend, if it is skilled, employable, and contributes to the economy.
Major challenges of a growing population[6]
Steady population: To achieve the goal of stable population growth, it is necessary to first reduce the fertility rate. This is quite high in states like Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, and Chhattisgarh, which remain a major challenge.
Quality of life: To provide a minimum quality of life to the citizens, the investment will have to be made on the development of education and health system, maximum production of grains and food grains, people will have to provide houses to live in, the supply of clean drinking water Work will have to be done to strengthen the infrastructure like road, transport and power generation and distribution.
India needs to spend more to meet the basic needs of the citizens and to accommodate the growing population by providing social infrastructure and for this India needs to increase its resources through all possible means.
Demographic Segmentation: To take advantage of the growing population, India needs to make a strong base of human capital so that they can contribute significantly to the country’s economy, but India’s low literacy rate (about 74 percent) is the biggest obstacle in this path.
Sustainable Urban Development: By 2050, the urban population of the country will reach 87.7 million, due to which the challenge will be to improve the urban facilities and provide housing to all, and all of them will need to keep the environment in view.
Uneven Income Distribution: Uneven distribution of income and increasing inequality among people will lead to negative consequences of overpopulation.
Increase in the number of elderlies:
According to the India Ageing Report 2017 released by United Nations Population Fund 2017, while in 2015, 8 percent of the total population of India is more than 60 years of age. In the year 2050, this number is likely to be more than 19 percent. The increasing population and a large number of elderly dependents will pose a double challenge to India and due to which it will become even more challenging for India to meet the basic needs of all.
What can be done?
To ensure food grains for everyone in the future, it is important that agriculture should be made profitable and that the prices of food grains do not change much, that is, they are more or less stable[7].
Implementing the Universal Basic Income as a security shield will also help in providing employment opportunities to a large number of unemployed youth.
Proper management of forest and water resources will have to be done so that they can be saved for sustainable use.
Achieving Sustainable Development Goals should be the centerpiece of any policymaking.
Relatively low-income and densely populated northern states of India need to make some important decisions such as women’s literacy, health, and workforce participation while learning from the southern states.
Better coordination between governments and strong civic social institutions is needed to achieve all the goals such as population reduction, maximum equality, better nutrition, universal education, and health facilities.
Rising life expectancy and increasing the population of adolescents will help in finding employment opportunities in new areas of service.
Schemes like AMRUT, Smart City, Make in India and Sustainable Development Goals will help in enhancing the social infrastructure of the country.
participation in the workforce should be stopped by making effective policies.
There needs to be a special focus on some areas which are socially, culturally, and economically backward. Identifying 140 such districts is the right step taken by the government in this direction.
The decline in sex ratio and discrimination against girls in the country is quite high. It is very important to pay attention to this issue so that people do not give birth to more children in the hope of having a boy.
India can achieve many Millennium Development Goals by combining it with family planning. Family planning is an incentive and preventive measure to reduce maternal mortality and child mortality.
It is important to look at the issue of population growth not only from the national point of view but also from the state’s point of view because different states need to be encouraged to take different steps to stop the population growth.
Politicians, policy-makers, and common citizens, including the government, will all have to work together to form a strict population policy so that the country’s economic growth rate can keep pace with the growing population.
Conclusion:-
Private Member’s Bill, ‘The Population Regulation Bill, 2019’ proposed by Member of Parliament, Shri Rakesh Sinha, in the Rajya Sabha on July 12, 2019, for punitive action against people with more than two living children, including being disqualified to be elected. Invoke. The delegation, denial of financial benefits, and reduction in benefits under the public distribution system.
The bill also suggests that government employees should make a promise that they will not purchase more than two children. While the Indian Population Foundation (PFI) welcomes the renewed focus on policies for population stabilization, we believe that the approach suggested in the bill is misplaced and India’s demographic trajectory is misinterpreted.
[1] Neetu Chandra Sharma, can proposed `Population Regulation Bill, 2019’ solve India’s population growth crisis, Livemint, 22 August 2020 (03: 35 pm)
[2]Bill No. XVIII of 2019ASINTRODUCEDINTHE RAJYA SABHAONTHE 12TH JULY, 2019, 21 August 2020 (10: 21 Am)
http://164.100.47.4/BillsTexts/RSBillTexts/asintroduced/population-E-12719.pdf
[3]Population Control Bill: Will India be able to handle its overpopulation crisis? Indiatoday, 22 August 2020 (11: 21 Am)
[4] Mrigakshi Dixit, World Population Day: Global Population to Rise by 2 Billion by 2050; India to Become Fastest-Growing Nation, Twc India, 23 August 2020 (04: 47 pm)
[5] By 2027, India population to cross China’s: UN, Indianexpress, 24 August 2020 (09: 46 am)
https://indianexpress.com/article/india/2027-india-population-to-cross-chinas-un-5785565/
[6] Dr. R. Balasubramaniam, India’s population challenge…Is there a way out? Starofmysore, 24 August 2020 (01: 22 pm)
https://starofmysore.com/indias-population-challenge-way/
[7] Alaka M. Basu, Make No Mistake, a Population Control Policy Will Target the Marginalised, Thewire, 27 August 2020 (11: 42 am)