Since returning to power, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu has expressed concern about the ageing population in the state and said his government was contemplating moves to incentivise families to have more children. On Monday, the Naidu government took a step in that direction by doing away with a three-decade-old law, the AP Panchayat Raj and AP Municipal Acts, that barred people with more than two children from contesting local body polls. Back in 1994, it was the Naidu government in undivided Andhra that amended the Panchayat Raj and Municipal Administration Department Acts to enforce the “two-children policy”.

Andhra Pradesh is not the first state to roll back the two-child policy. In 2005, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, and Madhya Pradesh rescinded the policy.

Why was the policy introduced?

It came into being after it was found that population control measures between the censuses of 1981 and 1991 were not yielding the expected results.

“India, at the time, was trying to control its population growth and the intra-census data revealed that we were not on the right track,” said Srinivas Goli, demographer and associate professor at the International Institute of Population Sciences, Mumbai.

The “unexpected” results led the National Development Council (NDC) to set up a committee chaired by then Kerala Chief Minister K Karunakaran. The panel recommended that people with more than two children should not be allowed to hold government posts, from the panchayat level to Parliament. The recommendations, submitted to the NDC were subsequently adopted by various states.

Which states adopted the recommendation?

Rajasthan became the first state to adopt the “two-child policy” at the panchayat level in 1992, followed by Andhra Pradesh (then undivided) and Haryana in 1994.

Odisha introduced the policy for local bodies in 1993 and extended it to the block panchayat level in 1994. While Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, and Madhya Pradesh introduced the policy in 2000, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Bihar, and Assam enforced it in 2003, 2005, 2007 and 2017, respectively. The policy came into force in Uttarakhand in 2019 while the Union Territories (UTs) of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu adopted the policy in 2020.

Why was the policy rescinded in some states?

Of the 13 states and UTs that adopted the policy, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, and Madhya Pradesh rolled it back in 2005.

“A key reason for going back on the policy was the worsening sex ratio at birth (SRB), which declined to 880:1000 between 2003 and 2005,” Goli said. Demographers claimed the steep decline in the SRB was due to the strict two-child policy and widespread access to pre-natal diagnostic technology for sex detection.

Another reason for rolling back the “two-child policy” was the National Population Policy that came into force in 2000 and deviated from the previous target-driven approach of population control. “National Population Policy in 2000 advocated target free approach and protection of reproductive rights,” Goli said.

Several individuals legally challenged the “two-child policy”. “There were several individual litigations filed against the Constitutional validity of being forced out of participation in panchayat and local body elections,” Goli said.

Why did Andhra Pradesh roll back the ‘two-child policy’?

Claiming that the ageing population could adversely affect the state, Naidu recently suggested that couples must be encouraged to have more children.Elaborating, Andhra Information and Public Relations Minister, K Parthasarathy said on Wednesday that the state’s Total Fertility Rate (TFR) was abysmally low. “While the national TFR is 2.11, it is only 1.5 in the state. This could affect the productivity of the state in the long run,” he said.

Is there a delimitation link and has Naidu found support?

With the Centre likely to take up the delimitation exercise in 2026, which is population-based, Naidu was not the only politician to express concerns about an ageing population and declining fertility rates.

Bharat Rashtra Samithi working president K T Rama Rao told The Indian Express in an interview that he had urged the Centre “not to punish” southern states for successfully implementing family planning. “I hope the Centre does not resort to misadventures with the number of seats, which must be increased based on economic performance … Injustice in the form of delimitation will not be tolerated and the people of the southern states will come out together against it,” he said.

Close on the heels of Naidu’s remarks in October on the need of having more children, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin, referring to an old Tamil blessing, said: “That blessing doesn’t mean beget 16 children … But now a situation has arisen where people think they should literally raise 16 children and not a small and prosperous family.”

Demographers claim offering incentives to couples to have more children will not reverse ageing. “In most parts of the world such incentives did not yield results,” said a demographer.