India
PDP's Waheed Para tables Kashmir fertility bill at 1.4 rate
The Indian Express··4d ago
PDP legislator Waheed Para submitted a Monsoon Session Bill citing National Family Health Survey-5 data showing Jammu and Kashmir's fertility rate at about 1.4 children per woman, below the 2.1 replacement level. Para told The Indian Express the territory is among India's lowest and cited over 70,000 cancer cases. The Bill seeks voluntary reproductive-health support without coercing family size.
Prism
What It Means For You
- The Bill proposes free sanitary products in schools and public healthcare facilities plus reproductive-health education.
- It seeks financial and educational support for families raising children without compelling any woman to bear a set number of children.
- Para said late marriages, voluntary bachelorhood and rising infertility are shrinking the next generation.
What's Happening
- Para said Jammu and Kashmir is among India's lowest fertility regions, below the national average of 1.9 he cited.
- The Bill also aims to strengthen enforcement against sex selection and sex-selective practices in the union territory.
- It calls for maternal and child healthcare and protection of women's dignity, privacy and reproductive rights.
What the Bill would fund
- The legislation frames fertility decline as affecting future labour supply, rural communities and intergenerational support.
- Para argued girls should not abandon education because of menstruation, marriage, pregnancy or poverty.
- The Bill says the state must enable voluntary, informed reproductive choices without coercion or economic compulsion.
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