No need for a drastic population policy

Data from Assam and Uttar Pradesh show that fertility rates have been reducing over time

Population policy is suddenly in the news in India with Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled States such as Assam and Uttar Pradesh proposing to bring in or bringing in draft legislation aimed at controlling their populations. The Uttar Pradesh Population (Control, Stabilisation and Welfare) Bill of 2021 promotes a two-child policy, according to which those people having more than two children will be barred from contesting local body elections and become ineligible to apply for State government jobs. A similar law has also been proposed in Assam, where the Chief Minister has even announced a ‘population army’ to curb the birth rate in Muslim-dominated areas in lower Assam. The U.P. Chief Minister has said that the aim of the policy is to reduce the total fertility rate in his State. The Chief Ministers of these States don’t seem to have read the document on population projection, published by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in 2019. According to this document, U.P. will reach a replacement rate (the rate at which women give birth to enough babies to sustain population levels) of 2.1 by 2025, and Assam by 2020. If the replacement fertility rate has already been achieved in Assam and will be achieved by 2025 in U.P., what is the need for any drastic population policy?