India's births fall to 1974 levels: EAC-PM urges India to end old population control rules now

With India’s annual births falling to about 23.2 million in 2023, back to the level seen around 1974, the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister has said the country should move away from an older population control approach, according to a PTI report. In a working paper, the council said India’s national total fertility rate has dropped to 1.9, well below replacement fertility.

The EAC-PM, in its paper titled ‘The Ghost of Population Past: How Population Control Persists in India’, recommended ending sterilisation-linked incentive payments in states and rolling back population control rules. The paper, by EAC-PM member Sanjeev Sanyal and co-authored by Aakanksha Arora and Virat Singh, said family planning policy should be aligned with India’s “new demographic reality”.

What the paper recommends

The paper said, “Roll back all direct benefit transfer payments, including acceptor payments, wage-loss compensations, and enhanced incentives to acceptors and service providers, related to sterilisations.” It added: “…there is no economic rationale for why these need to continue in the states that are now below replacement fertility.” It also called for ending all motivational incentive payments tied to terminal methods and the ASHA incentive related to limiting couples to two children.

It further recommended discontinuing all family-planning-related awards, World Population Day celebrations and Vasectomy Fortnight observances that call for population control. “In addition, repeal two-child norm disqualifications across all states,” the paper said.

Fertility rate and demographic shift

According to the paper, India’s total fertility rate is 1.9. Excluding Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, it stands at 1.6, which the paper said is comparable to Northern Europe at 1.5 and the United States at 1.6. It said there was no need to suppress the total fertility rate further and warned of the risk of a low-fertility trap.

The paper said the demographically mature southern states — Andhra Pradesh (1.4), Telangana (1.5), Karnataka (1.5), Kerala (1.3) and Tamil Nadu (1.3) — along with West Bengal (1.3), Punjab (1.4), Goa (1.6), Himachal Pradesh (1.5), Sikkim (1.0), Maharashtra (1.4) and Delhi (1.2), have remained below replacement fertility for more than two decades.

Call to change policy language

EAC-PM also recommended adjusting the scope of Mission Parivar Vikas to the changed demographic position in states that are at or below replacement fertility. “Remove all fertility reduction, population control or ‘stabilisation’ language from our national and state policy frameworks and outputs,” the paper said.

It said population control was no longer relevant as an objective of state policy and added, “Our family planning policies need to reflect the new demographic reality.” The paper also said, “We would like to point out that we are not against family planning for reasons of health, child spacing or personal preference.” It added that bureaucratic inertia and cultural indoctrination had kept such policies in place even as births, which peaked at roughly 29.3 million in 2001, fell by one-fifth by 2023.