PATNA: Disapproving Union minister and BJP leader Prahlad Singh Patel’s recent statement that a law for population control would be brought soon, CM Nitish Kumar on Monday said nothing happens by just framing rules and regulations.
Citing the example of China, Nitish said the country did so many things to control its population. “First, it (China) framed the one-child norm and then the two-children norm. Now, it is going to raise above two-children norm. Only making a law would not bring any major improvement,” Nitish, who heads a coalition government with BJP in Bihar, said.
Prahlad, while talking to reporters in Raipur on May 31, had said a law for population control would be brought soon in Parliament. When Nitish was asked on the issue after his weekly ‘janata darbar’ programme, he said, “Everyone knows how I have worked on the population control issue and brought down Bihar’s total fertility rate (TFR) to 3 from 4.3 (in 2005). Educating girls is more important. We made a detailed study in 2012-13 and concluded that where women are educated, the TFR is low. In study, we also found that when someone’s wife is matriculate, the TFR is 2. When she is intermediate pass, the TFR is even smaller.”
Nitish said every person has his/her own opinion over this issue. “My opinion is that make a consensus among people and create awareness over the issue,” he said.
“People should also be informed how an economically weak state like Bihar brought down its TFR to 3 from 4.3. If we continue to work on the same pattern, we will bring down the TFR to 2 in the next five to seven years. When girls are educated, there would be no need of bringing law for population control,” he asserted.
