Development of Assam and its two-child policy: Current Affairs Special Series

Team Adda247 and BankersAdda are here with a Current Affairs Special Series. In this series, candidates will be introduced to current affairs topics daily, which will not only improve their general awareness but also will ensure that the candidates do not lack in any current affairs topic. Today’s Current Affairs topic in India is the Development of Assam and its two-child policy.

Development of Assam and its two-child policy

Assam is aiming to its two-child policy in the state. Experts predict that Assam’s move to adopt a two-child policy for availing benefits of government schemes would be an adverse effect on the poorest and hindering the development of the state also.

Advocating Reproductive Choices (ARC) said there was no evidence that shows population explosion in the country. Even NFHS-5 or the national family health survey 2019-20 has made it clear that men and women want smaller families without any coercive population policy. The ARC is a coalition of around 115 organisations working towards expanding contraceptive choices, improving quality of care and ensuring availability and affordability of reproductive health and family planning services. 

Assam Chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said that the tea plantation workers, scheduled caste and scheduled tribes are barring with more than two children would gradually not be able to avail benefits under specific schemes funded by the state. 

Government data shows that Assam’s total fertility rate is 1.9 which is less than the national average of 2.2. NFHS-5’s data shows that 77% currently married women and 63% of men aged between 15 to 49 years in Assam want no more children. More than 82% of women and 79% of men consider the ideal family size to be two or fewer children and 11% of currently married women in Assam have an unmet need for family planning. 

Government objective behind the policy: It was critical that policy objectives catered to population stabilisation, enabling families, especially women, to exercise choices about having children. But outside Assam, even for states which had high fertility rates, there is no evidence that two-child policy was effective. This will be in addition to the amendment made in 2018 to the Assam Panchayat Act, 1994, which requires a two-child norm along with minimum qualifications and functional sanitary toilets for contesting the rural polls.