Babulal Kharadi.
Credit: X/@babulalkharadi3
Jaipur: In a strange paradox, newly-appointed Rajasthan Cabinet minister Babulal Kharadi urged people to produce more children, even as the state has a population control law that does not allow candidates with more than two children to run for panchayat or local body elections. Promotions for government officers are also withheld if they have more than two children.
Interestingly this law, with some relaxation for certain cases, was brought in two-decades ago by the Bhairon Singh Shekhawat-led BJP government in 1995. Also BJP-ruled states like Assam and Uttar Pradesh are planning to implement the two-child policy, which is likely to limit government benefits to people with more than two children. The law is likely to include the clause that a person with more than two children cannot apply for a government job or contest local body election.
Speaking at a Viksit Bharat Sankalp Yatra camp in Nai village in Udaipur district yesterday, the Tribal Area Development minister asked people to produce more children as Prime Minister Narendra Modi has promised to build houses for one and all.
Kharadi, 56, while addressing the people said : “It is the dream of the Prime Minister that no one should sleep hungry and without a roof over their head. You give birth to lots of children. Pradhan mantriji would build your houses, then what is the problem?" He also urged the people to vote for Modi and bring him back in 2024. Chief Minister Bhajan Lal Sharma was also present at the meeting.
Kharadi, a four-time legislator from Jhadol, a Scheduled Tribe constituency, has a strong RSS background. He still lives in a kutcha house and incidentally has two wives Teju Devi and Mani Devi and eight children. Simple and accessible, he was elected the best legislator in the last Assembly.
But the first-time minister seems to have missed out that as India became the most populous country in the world touching 143 crores in 2023, knocking off China from the top slot, it is faced with many challenges such as additional strain on the already depleting natural resources, pollution, global warming, climate change, unemployment, declining financial and economic health of the nation. These would be coupled with an increased demand for food, water, energy, healthcare, transportation and housing, which, however, the minister assures would be solved by Prime Minister Modi.
Meanwhile, Rajasthan being the biggest state of India, has a population of around 8.36 crore as in 2023. And an overall second highest unemployment rate of 30.2 per cent in the age group of 15 to 29 years mapped in cities in the period July-September 2023, as per Periodic Labour Force Survey.
Rajasthan has a Total Fertility Rate (TFR) of 2.4 as in 2020, the TFR (Rural) is 2.6 and TFR (Urban ) is 2. The TFR refers to the average number of children a woman in a country/state will give birth to throughout her reproductive years. India’s TFR is 2.05 as of 2020.
Aparajita Chattopadhyay, professor of International Institute For Population Sciences, Mumbai told Deccan Herald that Rajasthan’s TFR is high, especially in rural areas. “The ideal TFR is 2. But Rajasthan’s TFR is going to stabilise soon as has been achieved by many other states even before 2025, which was the set year. The population cannot be controlled suddenly, or stopped like an engine. It would stabilise over the years, and even family planning methods cannot be done forcefully. One has to provide access to different options available for family planning methods, the best is to space out having children.”
Chattopadhyay said the biggest challenge of population increase is definitely going to be providing employment. India’s working age population which includes the 15-64 age group comprises 68 per cent of the total population as per the UNFPA’s State of World Population Report 2023. And as per the Economic Survey 2020-21, total number of people working in the unorganised sector is around 43.99 crores (2019-20).
Chattopadhyay says : “While India has a demographic dividend, which has a huge potential to contribute to the economy, most people work in the unorganised sector. And the biggest challenge is to provide employment to this burgeoning workforce. The service sector being highly competitive, up-skilling, capacity building, quality education are needed, otherwise there would be division in the labour force. And naturally housing, which is already a problem in urban areas where the labour migrate, needs to be bolstered in rural areas as well. For this, there is a need to set up industries in rural areas, and housing consequently.”
In the previous government, Congress health minister Raghu Sharma had backed controlling the population, and given the slogan ‘Hum do, hamare ek, which he is supposed to have said in the context of Rajasthan’s population control law. However, the then Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot had distanced himself from the comment.