Centre against involuntary methods for population control, Supreme Court told

The Union government has told the Supreme Court that it was against the use of "involuntary methods" in family planning, saying international experience showed that any coercion to have a certain number of children would be counter-productive and would lead to demographic distortions.

"The family planning programme in India is voluntary in nature, which enables couples to decide the size of their family and adopt the family planning methods, best suited to them, according to their choice, without any compulsion," the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said.

The response of the ministry came in an affidavit to a petition filed by BJP leader and advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay in the top court for bringing in measures to strictly implement the two-children norm.

The Union government maintained that the 'public health' was a state subject, being placed at entry 6 of the List II of the Seventh Schedule to the Constitution. It is of the view that the State must lead the process for health sector reforms in a suitable and sustainable manner to protect the common individual from health hazards, the government said.

Claiming that it did not have any direct role, the government said it was a prerogative of the respective state government to implement various schemes as per the prescribed guidelines. "By way of allocating funds, it is facilitating the implementation of the approved schemes," it said.

"Moreover, India is witnessing a constant decline in Total Fertility Rate (TRF), which was at 3.2 at the time of when the National Population Policy, 2000 was adopted. It has now declined substantially to 2.2, indicating that the couples on an average do not want more two children. Also, as many as 25 States out of 36 States and Union Territories have already achieved the replacement level fertility of 2.1 or less.''

Responding to the affidavit, petitioner Upadhyay said, "It's very unfortunate that officials even don't know that Population Control and Family Planning is part of Concurrent List (List-III, Entry 20A) hence the Centre is empowered to make population control law."

However, the government, for its part, pointed out as per census, 2001-2011 is the first decade in 100 years which has not only added less population as compared to previous ones but also registered a sharp decline in decadal growth rate from 21.54% in 1991 to 2001 to 17.64 % in 2001-2011.

The government also listed out various schemes and programmes like observation of World Population Day, Mission Parivar Vikas, compensation scheme for sterilisation acceptors, home delivery of contraceptives, and 360-degree media campaigns to achieve the goal of population stabilisation and advancing the development targets of the country.