Cabinet appoints GoM to examine population boom

The group, set up by the Cabinet last week, includes a number of ministries which are directly affected by the population problem, including those of Environment, Food, Human Resource Development, Health and Family Welfare and the Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission.

The main thrust of the policy would be to achieve population stabilisation before the year 2026 when according to Planning Commission estimates based on the 1991 census projections the fertility rate is expected to decline to 2.1 children per family.

The draft policy has recommended the adoption of a multi-pronged yet holistic approach, where increased promotion of the use of contraceptives will be combined with a greater emphasis on pushing up the child8217;s chances of survival and lowering maternal mortality.

With the population expected to cross the one billion mark early next year, there is a sense of urgency that something drastic has to be done and that a lot of lead time has been lost thanks to the lethargy shown by successive governments.

Demographers, environmentalists and social scientists have repeatedly raised the alarm about the population far outpacing the sustaining capacity of the land.

A high-profile commission headed by noted scientist M S Swaminathan had submitted its recommendations in a report as far back as 1994 to the P V Narasimha Rao government. But the radical recommendations of the Swaminathan Report, including a proposal to divest the task of population control from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and entrust it to a separate Commission had been shot down by Health Ministry bureaucrats.

For nearly five years the Swaminathan report gathered dust, while precious time was lost and state government efforts were largely rudderless.

According to Health Ministry officials the latest draft population policy follows in large part the recommendations of the Swaminathan Committee. But it incorporates changes that have been adopted in the last five years including the target-free approach, where the practice of setting mandatory targets has been dropped. Additionally, the planning and implementation of the programme has been decentralised and a country-wide Reproductive and Child Health programme set in motion.

Last week Union Health and Family Welfare Minister Dalit Ezhilmalai told Parliament that the draft policy would address all issues relating to inter-sectoral coordination to achieve population stabilisation in the shortest possible time.