More children isn’t the answer to delimitation, tax challenges

What is needed is to prevent the level of population from determining political clout.

4 min readJun 26, 2026 08:13 PM IST

First published on: Jun 26, 2026 at 08:13 PM IST

Recently, the Sample Registration System (SRS) and the sixth round of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) released their results. What do they say about India’s future population size? A University of Washington team had estimated India’s total fertility rate (TFR) to be 1.9 in 2017, and its model showed that the population in India will peak at 160 crore in 2048. However, this estimate is optimistic as SRS estimates TFR to be 1.9 in 2024. The UN Population Division periodically updates its population projections and has estimated that the population is likely to peak at 170 crore in 2062 and decline thereafter. In view of the recent data, this is perhaps the most likely scenario.

There is very gradual progress, and, therefore, problems persist. The sex ratio at birth was estimated to be 918 in 2022-24, signifying a persistent “girl deficit” as the normal ratio is 955. It was 907 in 2018-2020. At this pace of increase, it will take 13 years to reach the normal rate, and the “girl deficit” will continue for even longer.

The most significant problem is the demographic divergence among states. The two highest-fertility states are Bihar and Uttar Pradesh at TFRs of 2.9 and 2.6, respectively, compared to 1.9 for India as a whole. At the current pace of decline in TFR, Bihar and UP will take 18 and 10 years to reach the replacement rate of 2.1, the rate at which the population size stabilises over a period of time.

One could argue that the way to reduce this divergence is to accelerate the decline in fertility of high-fertility states and increase it in low-fertility states. Let us examine each. Women’s empowerment and contraception broadly determine the pace of fertility decline. The female population (aged six years and above) who ever attended school was 73.7 per cent for all India, but much lower in Bihar and UP at 64.1 per cent and 70.1 per cent respectively. Women with 10 or more years of schooling constituted 46.4 per cent at the all-India level, but stood at 33.1 per cent and 42.5 per cent respectively in Bihar and UP. Use of any method of contraception among married women (15-49 years of age) was 69.1 per cent at the all-India level and 59.3 per cent and 62.4 per cent in Bihar and UP, respectively. Clearly, women’s empowerment efforts, as well as family welfare programmes to enable them to meet their fertility intentions, need to be accelerated in these states.

What can be done to increase fertility in low-fertility states? Recently, Andhra Pradesh announced a new population management policy to address declining fertility, which includes (a) a one-time payment of Rs 30,000 for the third child and Rs 40,000 for the fourth child; and (b) a monthly nutrition stipend of Rs 1,000 for the third child, free education up to the age of 18, and extended maternity leave. While researching imminent population decline in Sweden in 1945, Alva Myrdal, in her book Nation and Family, commented that one-off measures are most unlikely to work.

However, the question is: Is it necessary for any state to increase its fertility rate? In India, differential growth rates in population may have implications beyond the purely economic. Currently, delimitation is a big question. No state wants to lose its importance in the political system. This needs to be tackled through means other than population policy.

There is no case for any state to raise the fertility rate. We are still quite far away from stabilising our population. Lack of population is not what is hindering the states from growing faster. What is needed is to prevent the level of population from determining political clout. In the case of tax devolution, the problem was solved by introducing two criteria — the level of population and demographic performance — in determining the states’ shares.

India needs to pay more attention to population quantity and quality issues. The NFHS estimates of the TFR for Bihar and UP are lower than the SRS estimates. If so, this will quicken the time to achieve stability. We have to await Census results to get more definitive data on population issues.

Rangarajan is former chairman, PM-EAC, and former governor, RBI, and Satia is professor emeritus, Indian Institute of Public Health