Minister calls for sterilisation to put a check on population

India has 17% of the world population and adds a population equal to that of Australia each year...In this scenario, the population explosion in the country is proving to be a big roadblock for development.

PATNA: Raking up another controversy, Giriraj Singh, Union minister of state for micro, small and medium enterprises, on Sunday said that after ‘notebandi’ (demonetisation) there is an urgent need to make laws for ‘nasbandi’ (sterilisation) in the country.

Singh said that India required a strong population control act, including sterilization, as the country faced a population boom that was impeding development and social stability.

“India has 17% of the world population and adds a population equal to that of Australia each year. The country only has 2.5% of the land mass of the globe, with only 4.2% of water resources. In this scenario, the population explosion in the country is proving to be a big roadblock for development. We need a population control act to tide over the problem,” he said.

The minister had advocated sterilisationtocontrolpopulationat GIRIRAJ SINGH, Union minister of state for micro, small and medium enterprises

afunctioninhisparliamentaryconstituency of Nawada on Saturday.

Incidentally, Singh is the second senior BJP leader in Bihar to have advocated sterilisation after demonetisation. Last week, former Union minister and senior leader Sanjay Paswan said that sterilisation would help control the country’s population.

In the past, Singh, who is considered a hardliner in his party, raised eyebrows with his controversial statements, which have embarrassed the BJP on numerous occasions.

In October last year, Singh had said that Hindus should seriously think of increasing their population by producing more children. He then recalled that none other

than RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat had advised Hindus in August last year to produce more children, saying that no laws could prevent them from doing that.

Reached for his comments on his latest statement about sterilisation, Singh told HT that he had been advocating the same for long as it was the need of the hour to control population. But he insisted that it would be wrong to link his advocacy of sterilisation as directed towards any particular community, emphasising that population control measures were in practice in many countries. “There are population control laws in Bangladesh and Malaysia. So, there is nothing wrong if it happens in India,” he said.