NEW DELHI, JULY 20: The ghost of Emergency seems to scare the Centre from accepting the recommendation of National Population Commission (NPC) members to make the two-children norm mandatory for the entire country.The Commission, constituted on May 11, will have its maiden meeting to be chaired by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee on July 22. Suggestions pouring in from its 100-odd members, including 11 Union Ministers besides deputy chairman of the Planning Commission KC Pant, will be taken up during the said meeting.The Centre is stated to be under pressure to accept the recommendation since three states - Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Orissa - have already provided for deterrent steps like barring people having more than two children from contesting elections, witholding promotions or increments of Government employees.The Government apprehends emergency-like adverse reaction from people if ittoo provided for similar stringent action against people with more than two children. The PM himself seems to be in a dilemma. Accepting such recommendations at the meeting would set the tone for population control programme to be formulated.Interestingly, the draft population control policy - prepared by a Group of Ministers (GoM) chaired by K C Pant - contained the mandatory two-children clause. The proposal was, however, rejected by majority of political parties when the draft policy was presented before an All Party meeting in December last year.The National Population Policy was finally released by the Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare N T Shanmugham about two months ago. Other recommendations of NPC include earmarking at least 50 per cent of MPs Local Area Development (MPLAD) fund worth Rs two crore per annum to control population explosion, adoption of one district by each Commission member and getting corporate houses to adopt one district each to strengthen ``social welfare infrastructure''. About 250 districts in various parts of the country have been identified where population growth had become a menace. The Government is learnt to be hedging the proposal about MPLAD fund since accepting it could lead to MPs demanding for a hike in the fund, a demand already rejected by Minister of State for Planning and Programme Implementation Arun Shourie, who himself is a member of the Commission.The Commission was constituted by the Government for formulating population control programmes, monitoring their execution, coordinating between population control agencies at the Centre and states and ensuring that targets were achieved. The Commission would strive to stabilise the population growth by the year 2010, sources in the Health Ministry said.Besides including Ministers, the Commission has representation of almost all political parties and many distinguished people, only to maintain its apolitical character.
