Sanyal calls for end to population control policies

New Delhi: India should abandon its population control policies and adjust its family planning approach to align with the nation's evolving demographic landscape, according to Sanjeev Sanyal, a member of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (EAC-PM). Sanyal argues that the government should reverse population control rules and incentives as the national fertility rate continues to decline sharply.

In a working paper titled "The Ghost of Population Past," co-authored with Aakanksha Arora and Virat Singh, Sanyal emphasizes the difficulty of reversing a declining fertility rate once it reaches a behavioral tipping point. He stresses that there's no need to suppress the total fertility rate (TFR) further, as it could lead to a low-fertility trap.

The paper recommends ending sterilization-linked incentive payments by discontinuing direct benefit transfers, including acceptor payments, wage-loss compensations, and enhanced incentives for sterilization. It also suggests repealing motivational payments and incentive payments tied to sterilization methods and the ASHA incentive for limiting couples to two children.

The paper calls for discontinuing family-planning-related awards, World Population Day celebrations, and Vasectomy Fortnight observances that promote population control. Moreover, it urges the removal of fertility reduction, population control, or stabilization language from national and state policy frameworks. The paper notes that India's TFR is currently at 1.9, well below the replacement fertility level, and suggests that the TFR is comparable to Northern Europe (1.5) and the United States (1.6).