Recently the Manipur government has limited the number of children in the same family to four for government jobs or benefits of various schemes.  Not only Manipur, many states of the country are facing the problem of increasing population.  The 'UN World Population Prospects 2022' estimates that India will overtake China to become the most populous country by 2023.  In such a situation, it is natural to ask why there is no population control law?  In response to a PIL related to population control in 2020, the central government told the Supreme Court that 'people in the country cannot be compelled to do family planning'.  This answer may have deep implications.  Will the population control law affect vote bank politics?  Or will such a law prove to be of negative consequence for the country?  Recently, External Affairs Minister S.  Jaishankar said that 'Forcible population control can have dangerous consequences.  It can create gender imbalance.

Surely the population growth rate has come down but is it as expected?  We should not forget that we have only about 2 percent of the world's arable land and 4 percent of the potable water, but 20 percent of the population.  It is a well-known fact that the burden of population will irreversibly affect India's environmental and natural resource base and limit the rights and progress of future generations.

Significantly, the two-child policy has been presented 35 times in the Parliament since independence, but it did not yield any positive results.  In the year 2000, Justice M.N.  The 11-member Constitution Review Commission constituted under the chairmanship of Venkatachaliah had suggested the addition of Article 47A in the Constitution and enactment of a population control law.  Article 47A actually talks about giving exemption in education, employment and tax deduction to those families who have two children.  It also proposes to deny government benefits to couples who have more than two children.  This article clearly does not compel any couple to do family planning, but there is a lack of political will regarding this article.

In a secular nation, if the population growth rate of a particular religion or sect is high, then obviously it can create dissatisfaction among religions or sects with low population growth rate.  Those with a mindset that shields religion against family planning must read the draft of Indonesia's 1992 population control law.  It was mentioned, 'National development includes all dimensions and aspects of life which includes development of quality of people and families in order to achieve prosperity, welfare and happiness for the society.  A large and unsuitable population and its mismatch of environmental potential affects all aspects of life.  Population control is necessary to make human resource a strong source for national development.

Generally, parents argue about the birth rights of more children that when it is their responsibility to take care of their child, then society has no right to express concern over it.  The proponents of this argument are not only the uneducated, but also the people of the educated class who are unaware that every child born in the country becomes a participant in the progress or decline of the country.  Plenty of population creates resource as well as regional imbalance.