As you are aware that Uttar Pradesh government has brought the Uttar Pradesh Population Control Bill, whose purpose has been said to control the population. This bill has been circulated for suggestions and objections. If passed by the legislature, it will become a law and will come into force after one year. Although the purpose of this law is said to be population control, stabilization and welfare, but in reality, it is aimed at punishing large numbers of families with more than two children, depriving them of government jobs, reducing the ration quota, depriving them of contesting elections and all welfare schemes. It is depriving of the benefits of the schemes as is clear from the following discussion: –
!. Section 8 of this bill seeks to (1) deprive a family with more than two children from the benefits of welfare schemes, (2) limit ration to only four units, (3) and other prescribed incentives.
2. Depriving the village head, BDC and district panchayat president from contesting elections in section 9 of the bill. The same restriction would apply to the local body elections as well. If any of these office-bearers breaks the two-child restriction i.e., produces more than two children, he will be removed from that post and debarred from contesting elections in future.
3. According to section 10 of the bill, a person with a family of more than two children will not be able to fill the form of a government job, that is, he will not get a government job.
4. According to section 11 of the Bill, if a person has more than two children while in service, his increment will be stopped.
5. According to section 12 of the bill, a person with a family of more than two children will not get any kind of government subsidy.
Although this bill also talks about giving some incentives to families with one or two children, but the biggest ill effect of this bill is to fall on Dalits, Adivasis and other poor people because they usually have more than two children. Due to lack of government jobs, limiting the ration to four units, depriving them of the benefits of welfare schemes, depriving them of contesting elections to the village head, BDC and district panchayat president and depriving them of all kinds of subsidies, this class will face more poverty, unemployment and starvation. This will have the worst impact on the Tribals as at present most of them have more than two children.
It is well known that the main reasons for having more children in families are poverty, unemployment, illiteracy and lack of family planning and health facilities which should be removed by the government. But while not doing so, the government is going to punish the people by making laws. The failure of the Yogi government on this front has been exposed during the last wave of Corona. Unemployment is at its peak in Uttar Pradesh, against which youth are continuously agitating. The labourers in the village are unemployed because even work under MGNREGA is not available. The farmers have been agitating for a long time against the black agricultural laws and for enacting a law for procurement at MSP.
It is clear from the above description that the proposed population control bill of the Yogi government is completely anti-Dalit/tribal and anti-poor. It is also worth mentioning that the population and fertility rate of Uttar Pradesh is continuously decreasing and there is no danger of population explosion in any way. Therefore, there is no need to make any kind of law for population control. It seems that the real aim of the Yogi government is only to divert the attention of the general public from its real issues till the elections. Therefore, everyone should be cautious with this move of BJP and should oppose the population control bill.
S R Darapuri, National Spokesperson, All India People’s Front
