The Uttar Pradesh government plans to give incentives to couples who have one child while denying government benefits to those having more than two children in its new population policy, the draft of which was released in Lucknow on Saturday.
The Uttar Pradesh Population (Control, Stabilisation and Welfare) Bill, 2021, according to the official sources, aims at ''revitalising efforts and providing for measures to control, stabilise and provide welfare to the population of the state by implementation and promotion of two-child norm''.
The Bill provides for making couples with more than two children ineligible for state government jobs and also bar them from contesting panchayat elections while those with two children would receive two additional increments, subsidy in the purchase of house and rebate in the utility bills.
Couples with one child would receive extra benefits, including four additional increments, free education up to graduation and preference in admission in schools.
Every state government employee and the members of the local bodies would have to give an undertaking within one year from the implementation of the policy that he would not act in contravention to the two-child norm.
The Bill also deals with polygamous and polyandrous marriage and says that they will be considered as a set of married couples with one man and one woman only.
It goes on to explain the same stating:
''The personal law governing A allows polygamy. A has two wives B and C. A with his first wife B conceive two children, born out of the same pregnancy. A subsequently marries C and she conceives another child. A has a total of three children from all his marital relationships and has acted in contravention of the two-child norm. The same formula would be applicable in cases of polyandrous marriages''.
It also said that the state government would establish maternity centres at all the primary health centres, distribute contraceptive pills, condoms, etc through Healthcare Centres and Non-Governmental Organizations.
The government would also organise massive information and education campaigns to generate public awareness related to the benefits of having small families and healthy birth spacing, and introduce Population Control in School Curriculum.
Although the government officials had denied that the new policy had anything to do with any specific religion, opposition parties slammed the BJP government for targetting a particular community.
''BJP has always been against a particular community... they have been on the receiving end under the current dispensation,'' said a senior Samajwadi Party (SP) leader.
He also attributed the move to the state government's attempts to hide its failures in controlling the Covid 19 pandemic in the state.
Saffron leaders, however, welcomed the move and said that it would help check the growing population of the state.