The Hindu : National : Maharashtra firm on two-child norm for civic polls

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Oct 16, 2005

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National

Maharashtra firm on two-child norm for civic polls

Mahesh Vijapurkar

State keen on curbing population and improving hygiene in rural areas

MUMBAI: : Despite requests from the Union Panchayati Raj Ministry and Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar, the Maharashtra Rural Development Ministry does not want to withdraw its two-child norm as eligibility to contest civic elections in the State. The norm is in force since September 2000.

Earlier, the State wanted to enforce the criterion for irrigation facilities but decided to charge more for those who failed to meet the norm. Now it is being made compulsory for those contesting the local body polls to have toilets within the house.

The State's experience in promoting toilets in rural households has been far from satisfactory. From 1997, it provided Rs. 450 crores as subsidy for 20 lakh toilets but only 17 lakhs were built. Only 40 per cent of those built were put to proper use; others were used as storage and even puja rooms.

The Ministry, the State's nodal agency for Panchayati Raj, headed by Nationalist Congress Party's Vijaysinh Mohite Patil, is firm on the requirement as it sends out a message that population should be curbed and hygiene improved.

When the Ministry declined to comply with Mr. Aiyar's request made in May, he followed it up with another missive in September, citing the writings of social activist Nirmala Buch on how the norm adversely affected the interests of women.

Mr. Patil wrote back Mr. Aiyar in July that the two-child law was enacted "with due deliberation" because "the increasing population has reached dangerous levels."

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