Population Concerns Expressed By Naidu And Stalin Are Quite Genuine

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu and his Tamil Nadu counterpart M.K. Stalin have urged their people to have more children, though the latter did it jocularly. This seems baffling, especially to the people in north India, as for years now population control has been regarded as a genuine policy goal. But the concerns of the two Chief Ministers—indeed that of many southern leaders—are genuine, even though the have-more-kids solution they have offered doesn’t seem to be effective. Their concerns are the result of the diverse demographic trends across the country over the past few decades. Owing to the population control measures promoted by the government and duly adopted by people, there has been a variable decline in population growth rates across states. The southern states have generally been more successful in implementing family planning programmes. Consider the cases of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and Andhra Pradesh from 1992-93 to 2019-20. In this period, the total fertility rate in Uttar Pradesh halved, coming down from 4.8 to 2.4, whereas in Bihar it came down from four to three and in Andhra Pradesh it was down from 2.6 to 1.7.

The total fertility rate means that the number of children that would be born to a woman if she were to live to the end of her childbearing years. This has resulted in much faster increase in populations in the two northern states than in Andhra Pradesh. This can have political consequences, for in a democracy numbers count. It is a truism that more people in a particular geography send more people to the national legislature. Hence, northern states will have more representatives in Parliament if delimitation is carried out. As per the order of the Delimitation Commission in 1976, the number of Lok Sabha seats was frozen at 543 for 25 years; it was repeated in 2001 to ‘encourage population-limiting measures’. On the face of it, the political class faces a dilemma-if the freeze continues, the northern states will be inadequately represented in the Lok Sabha; if not, the southern states will be penalized for being more effective in population control measures.

Keeping the number at 543 or augmenting it will impact our federal structure. It is a known fact that population data also influences allocation of resources and fiscal transfers from the Central government to states. It may be pointed out that there has been a steep decline in the weight that successive Finance Commissions have attributed to population in determining states’ share. For the first seven commissions, it was in the 80-90 per cent range. It declined gradually and fell to 15 per cent as per the 15th Finance Commission. Southern states resent, and rightly so, that the extant system punishes them for successfully controlling their populations and achieving higher levels of human development. This is the reason why Naidu and Stalin want a re-evaluation of how population is factored into fiscal policy. The solution, however, is not the reversal of the current population policy. The political class must solve the existing dilemma by taking recourse to reason and commonsense, and not by making emotive remarks. The rational choice is another freeze for 25 years. Southern leaders should try to reach a consensus on that.