Assam CM to Muslims: Adopt ‘decent family planning’ policy

Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma here on Thursday said that the minority Muslim community should adopt “decent family planning” policy to bring down poverty and control the social problems.

Sarma while addressing a press conference to present a report card on completion of 30 days in office told reporters, “We intend to work with the Muslim community to control population. The root cause of issues such as poverty, land encroachment etc., lies in uncontrolled population growth. I think we can put an end to a lot of social problems in Assam if the Muslim community adopts decent family planning norms.”

The Chief Minister also made an appeal to organisations representing minority like All Assam Minority Students Union (AAMSU) and Opposition party All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) to focus on population control initiatives in the Muslim community.

He said, “Assam government is going to take a few more steps which should encourage population control. I want to work with AAMSU and AIUDF on this.”

Asserting the need of encouraging and supporting the need of education among Muslim women, the Chief Minister said, “You cannot reduce poverty unless you control your population. I hope the community will respect the government’s stand on this and work towards this.”

The BJP government has already passed a population and women empowerment policy which prevented people with more than two children from securing government jobs in the Assam assembly in 2017. It also prevented them from contesting panchayat and municipal elections. However, policy is yet to be implemented.

Since taking over the office, the state government has launched a campaign to uproot encroachment mostly from religious places of Hindus at Sipajhar, Sootea, Hojai and Karimganj.

“All this encroachment is taking place because of abnormal population growth. If this trend continues, it will lead to shortage of living space and may soon result in conflict. Some are saying that such eviction drives shouldn’t happen. But we can’t allow people to illegally settle on forest land or land belonging to temples,” said the Chief Minister.

Sarma also indicated that his government would soon pass a Bill in the state Assembly to stop the state from becoming the transit route of cattle smuggling.

Pointing out that the existing laws in the state don’t consider the transit of cattle as illegal, Sarma said that cattle brought for smuggling to Bangladesh from other states are transported through Assam to IndiaBangladesh border in Meghalaya.