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Uttar Pradesh state law commission has prepared a draft bill to control, stabilize, and welfare the population. The main goal of this bill is to bring down the total fertility rate in the state from 2.7 to 2.1 within the next decade. This draft bill has five chapters with several sections in each chapter. Chapter 2 of this bill deals with the incentive and disincentive to the public servant under the control of the state government and to all who violate the two-child norm. The release draft bill titled THE UTTAR PRADESH POPULATION (CONTROL, STABILIZATION, AND WELFARE) BILL, 2021. 

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If the public servant after the birth of two children undergoes voluntary sterilization operation upon himself or spouse are entitled to many incentives like promotion, increment, rebate on charge for utilities such as water, electricity, house tax and other benefits like healthcare, educational facilities for children. There are special benefits to the couple living under the below poverty line having only one child and undergoing voluntary sterilization then he is eligible for a one-time payment of eighty thousand rupees if the single child is a boy and one lakh if the single child is a girl. 

After the law comes into force, a person with more than two children will be debarred from several benefits such as debarred from benefits of a government scheme, limit of ration card up to four-member, ineligible to several opportunities such as contesting election to the local body, applying for a government job, promotion in government service, receiving any kind of government subsidy. 

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Uttar Pradesh is the most populous state in India with a 23 crore population estimated in 2021. India has just two percent of the world’s landmass with sixteen percent global population. It is reported that soon India overtakes China's population and becomes the world’s largest populous country. Overpopulation is a major issue in India. Overpopulation has many fatal effects like depletion of natural resources, degradation of the environment, religious, social conflict and wars, rise in unemployment, high-cost living, pandemics, malnutrition, starvation, faster climate change. There are many reasons for the high population in Uttar Pradesh. One of the reasons is the High Total Fertility Rate which is 2.7 in Uttar Pradesh and the replacement rate is 2.1.

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Faster growth of population in the last decade because of mismatch in birth and death rate. Children in rural areas are considered as assets, who will take care of their parents at old age and more children mean more earnings. Females in rural areas have a lack of education and education has a direct impact on the fertility rate and lack of education about the use of contraceptives in the consequences females give birth to children frequently.

The Uttar Pradesh state law commission had released the draft bill on 9th July 2021. On its website for seeking suggestions from the public. This bill comes shortly after chief minister Yogi Adityanath said his government would unveil a new population policy. The state law commission received 8500 mails on the draft bill. The State Law commission has received many suggestions for the draft bill and allowing the suggestion to have a third child if a couple has two daughters or any child differently-disabled among them. 

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Now the question arises, is this a good step to fight overpopulation. To know the consequences and effects of the bill we have to look for similar laws that have been tested in other countries and what have been their results. One such good example of that is China's one-child policy. In 1979 China introduced a one-child policy to control the population. China’s one-child policy has very negative consequences which became very clear in 2005. The main problem in China is Chinese society, which is very gender-biased like Indian society. If people can give birth to only one child then they preferred a male child and because of that female foeticide and abortion increased. As a result, in 2005 China became one of the world’s worst gender ratio countries. This is a huge failure for China. This could be also possible in India because India is also a gender-biased society and Uttar Pradesh’s gender ratio is already low: 1000 males: 789 females. Another criticism of the bill is that if a person has three or more children and wants to contest in local body elections, in that case, he simply divorced the woman so that he can contest in the election. This could worsen the condition of females. Another criticism is sterilization. This method is not new to our country, in 1975 during the emergency Indra Gandhi began the “gruesome campaign” to sterilize poor men. Around seven million Indian men were sterilized. But if you look at the population growth chart of that time, this did not make even a small difference in the growth of the population. It has negative consequences.

Reproductive rights are the basic right of all couples and individuals to decide freely and responsibly the number, spacing, and timing of their children and to have the highest standard of sexual and reproductive health. Individuals should have the right to make decisions concerning reproduction free of discrimination, coercion, and violence. This bill is also a violation of article 21 of the Indian constitution. On 24 August 2017, the nine-judge bench of the supreme court of India in the case of Justice KS Puttaswamy vs Union of India held that privacy to cover personal autonomy relating to the body, mind, and to making choice. A key aspect of this is personal autonomy and reproductive rights, which entail making sexual and reproductive decisions, as recognized by the 1994 united nations international conference on population and development. 

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In the constitution of India, the concept of directive principles of state policy is to establish the welfare state, not to ineligible people from the welfare scheme. If any poor person has two or more children then he is not eligible for government schemes that eventually make him poorer and his social condition remains the same. Our constitution’s main objective is to create a welfare state and while making any law the government has to keep these directive principles in mind.

The best method to control the population is to develop in education, healthcare, and economy. Poverty and illiteracy contribute immensely to population growth. There is a direct correlation between literacy rate and fertility rate. In which states fertility rates are low, literacy rate there is high. On the other hand, states have a low literacy rate, the fertility rate is high there. For example, Kerala’s literacy rate is 96.2%, and its fertility rate is 1.8. A state like Bihar where a literacy rate is 63.82%, and its fertility rate is 3.2. Government should focus on education and healthcare because when women become more educated and aware, population growth will reduce. 

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