Plea in SC on two-child policy adoption

New Delhi: A PIL was filed in the Supreme Court on Monday seeking a direction to the Centre to adopt a "two-child" policy to combat the growing population.

The petition filed by Anupam Bajpai, national coordinator of Jeevan Bachao Andolan, through advocate Shiv Kumar Tripathi is expected to be heard next week.

The petition, while suggesting that the number of children in each family be restricted to two, has proposed that the Centre link various welfare measures to people only if they comply with the two-child policy.

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According to the petitioner, since India is the second-most populated country after China, there is a serious pressure on natural resources such as water, air and food grains.

The petitioner has cited the instance of China succeeding in reducing its population by adopting the one-child norm.

"It was able to reduce the population growth by about 300 million over 20 years. The various methods that were adopted to implement the one-child norm included IUDs, sterilisation and abortions as forms of birth control," the plea said.

"The China government even used a variety of incentives, coercions and punishments to enforce the policy and also tried to force couples to delay getting married, (gave) those who had only one child... a 'One-Child Certificate' and entited them to better child care, longer maternity leave and other benefits," the plea added.

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