Expressing concern over the “rising population” and “population imbalance”, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, on the occasion of World Population Day, said that along with population control, efforts should be made to maintain the demographic balance in all communities.
“Vast differences in growth rates of different religious groups (religious demographic imbalance) may cause chaos and anarchy in the country. It should not happen that the speed/percentage of population growth of any one class is more and the natives should be made conscious to control the population through efforts of stabilisation,” Yogi said.
He pointed out that in countries with higher populations the demographic imbalance becomes a matter of concern. Therefore, he said, all religions, classes, and sectors should be equally added to the efforts of population stabilisation. “The challenge of demographic imbalance should not arise anywhere,” he added.
Kicking off the population stabilisation fortnight in the state on Monday, the chief minister said, “We face another challenge when we often talk of controlling maternal-child mortality, preventing maternal anemia. That is, both maternal and infant mortality rates are high in a particular category. If the time interval between the births of two children is less, it will also affect the maternal and infant mortality rate and society will also have to pay its price.”
Maintaining that the mass awareness programmes of population stabilisation going on for the last five decades had yielded good results, the chief minister said a huge population was also a resource but this was an achievement only when people were healthy.
“Where there is a lack of medical resources and diseases prevail, population growth is a big challenge. World Population Day exemplifies this challenge,” he said.
The chief minister went on to say that awareness was of utmost importance in achieving population stabilisation.
“Awareness is not just the responsibility of the Health department. Rather, the departments of Urban Development, Rural Development, and Education among others should be associated with it,” he said.
“In controlling meningitis, we have seen the importance of inter-departmental coordination. Today, up to 95 per cent of child deaths from this disease have been controlled. Similar inter-departmental coordination should be made in this regard too. ASHA and Anganwadi workers, teachers, representatives of gram panchayats, and religious leaders can play an important role in population stabilisation,” he added.
Mentioning the achievements of Uttar Pradesh in the last five years, the chief minister said that maternal anemia had come down from 51.1 per cent to 45.9 per cent while full immunisation had gone up from 51.1 per cent to about 70 per cent in the last five years.
He said the rate of institutional deliveries which was 67-68 per cent earlier was going up to 84 per cent now. He said efforts to control maternal-child mortality had yielded good results.
In order to encourage the newly married couples to go for family planning, the chief minister provided ‘Shagun kit’ to the newlyweds. The ‘Shagun kit’ made of jute bags, includes essential items like a towel, two sets of handkerchiefs, comb, specs, perfume, information card, mobile numbers of ASHA and ANM, marriage registration form, condom kit, contraceptive pills, pregnancy test kit, emergency contraceptive pills along with a letter mentioning the benefits of family planning.