TIRUPATI: Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu is working on a proposal to allow only those with more than two children to contest in municipal and panchayat elections. His statement comes barely a couple of months after the state assembly repealed a three-decade-old law that barred individuals with more than two children from contesting local body elections.
Naidu has been advocating for the past decade that Telugus should have more children to tackle the problem of ageing population. Last year, he spoke about the need to provide incentives to families with more children.
Naidu mulls more subsidised rice for those with 2+ kids
After Naidu stirred up a nationwide debate, his Tamil Nadu counterpart MK Stalin too echoed the views and urged people to bear more children.
“We earlier had a legislation that allowed people with not more than two children to contest in local body and civic body polls,” Naidu said at his native Naravaripalle village near Tirupati on Tuesday while celebrating Sankranti with his family and relatives.
“Now I say that those with fewer children will not be allowed to contest elections. In the future, you will become a sarpanch, municipal councillor or mayor only if you have more than two children. I am going to include this (in the proposed rules),” he said.
The two-child policy was adhered to by all South Indian states as is evident from the total fertility rate (TFR) of these states which is at 1.73, that is below the national average of 2.1. TFR of five big heartland states of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan and Jharkhand is at 2.4, which is higher than the national average.
Stating that he is going to incentivise families with more children including permitting them to contest in panchayat and municipal elections, Naidu said he is also working on the proposal to provide more subsidised rice to families with more children. At present there is a cap of 25 kg of subsidised rice per family with each member getting 5 kg of rice.
He said Japan, Korea and many European countries had incentivised family planning policy as the total fertility rate there is abysmally low. These countries are battling ageing population concerns today and have been inviting Indians to shift to their countries.
“This is a wake-up call for India too as we have been incentivising the family planning concept and have been restricting families to have a limited number of children. Some years down the line, India too will face 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 reap great demographic dividends by 2047,” Naidu said.
