The new family plan

The proposed high-octane campaign towards having smaller families, with spacing of children to protect maternal health, is welcome (‘Weekend – Being’ page — “

>What’s the family plan? ”, April 17). For long, the emphasis on the small family norm has been ignored. Demographers generally agree that unchecked global population growth will impact everything from pollution control to new epidemics like Zika, sustainable food production, climate change, and freshwater supplies. Overpopulation is the unspoken driver of environmental destruction. Rising numbers with only a finite supply of resources on our planet is a recipe for disaster, and managing this is the challenge. India no doubt was one of the earliest nations to adopt family planning as a national mission but somewhere along the way we seem to have lost the plot. A fresh national approach to encouraging small families, especially among those who are poor, should be our priority and the campaign should proceed in this direction. Benefits like enhanced rations, access to clean fuels like gas, state medical benefits, and continuing education should be the incentives towards adopting a small family norm.

H.N. Ramakrishna,

Bengaluru