Union Budget 2024: Finance Minister proposes committee to study population growth; Opposition finds it suspicious

New Delhi: With population control being one of the key themes of the Sangh Parivar, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday said the government will form a high-powered committee to “comprehensively” look into the challenges arising from “fast population growth and demographic changes”.

The announcement came during the presentation of the interim Budget in Lok Sabha under the heading “societal changes”.

“The government will form a high-powered committee for an extensive consideration of the challenges arising from fast population growth and demographic changes. The committee will be mandated to make recommendations for addressing these challenges comprehensively in relation to the goal of ‘Viksit Bharat’,” she said.

Responding to the announcement, Rajya Sabha CPI(M) MP John Brittas said the RSS-BJP’s pet theme is Muslim bashing and one needs to take the proposal with “some suspicion”.

He told DH, “this seems to be an attempt to tarnish the Muslim community. Instead of addressing basic concerns like providing education that can actually lead to controlling the population, this government is looking somewhere else.”

The RSS and BJP as well as its affiliates had been raising the issue of population growth while pointing fingers at the Muslims though their growth rate has declined. The Opposition has always sounded suspicious about the BJP's attempt to raise the issue of population growth.

A number of BJP MPs had over a period of time tabled private member's bills in both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha seeking controlling population growth. Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswas Sarma had raised concerns over rise in population in certain districts.

Union Minister Sanjeev Balyan had in 2019 said that the government was working on formulating the population control law. In a private members bill he tabled in Lok Sabha before he became a minister, Balyan had said that the root cause of a majority of the problems being faced by the country is uncontrolled growth of population.

It is also reported earlier that the Uniform Civil Code which the Uttarakhand government is planning to bring next week is likely to have provisions for population control through ‘responsible parenthood’.