Petition to the Supreme Court regarding population control, the Centre's answer cannot be forced on people for family planning

New Delhi, Saturday 12 December 2020

During a hearing on a petition filed in the Supreme Court on population control, the Center said that India was against forcing its people to use family planning and determining the number of children to be born, adding that doing so would lead to demographic distortions.

In a petition filed in the Supreme Court, the health department said that the family welfare program in the country is voluntary, enabling people to decide how big their family is and to adopt a family planning system without any pressure, the health ministry said in reply to BJP leader and lawyer Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay. Given in response to a public interest petition filed by.

The petition, filed by Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay challenging a Delhi court order rejecting other demands along with a two-child strategy to control the country's growing population, the health ministry said in its reply that public health was a state matter.

The ministry further said that the state governments should lead the process of health sector reform so that the health of the common man is protected from risks, effectively implementing schemes as per the guidelines laid down for health sector reform by the concerned state governments.

The ministry says that as far as the implementation of guidelines and schemes in the states is concerned, it has no direct role and the state governments concerned have the privilege to implement the schemes as per the set guidelines, the ministry only allocates funds to the state governments for implementation of schemes.

The Supreme Court for Health and Family Welfare said that India has adopted a comprehensive and comprehensive National Population Policy (NPP) 200 with clearly stated objectives, strategic themes and operational strategies.