Hyderabad: Women employees of the Andhra Pradesh government can now avail six months of paid maternity leave more than twice, a move welcomed by the employees’ unions.
The decision follows Telugu Desam Party (TDP) chief and Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu’s push for larger families, to maintain the demographic dividend in the state.
“To enable balanced professional and personal lives to the women employees and also to address demographic management in the state, it is decided by the competent authority that the limit on two surviving children for availing the maternity leave needs to be relaxed,” according to an order from the finance department issued Monday.
Stating that the condition of less than two surviving children for availing the maternity leave is removed with immediate effect, the government order modifies earlier orders from 2010—under the united Andhra Pradesh administration—on the aspect.
The 2010 order was issued to enhance the maternity leave on full pay to married women employees from 120 days to 180 days on par with the central government employees, subject to the condition that it shall be granted to those with less than two children only.
“Now, women employees can avail the maternity leave on pay benefit any number of times,” Peeyush Kumar, principal secretary, finance department told ThePrint.
Since reassuming the chief minister’s chair in June, Naidu has been vocally advocating population growth in AP, regularly urging families to have more children to sustain the demographic dividend and maintain the state’s competitive edge in industrial output and other growth indicators.
The TDP chief’s push for larger families is also seen by some as an attempt to protect the state’s parliamentary seat share, which could be affected because of its falling population during the next delimitation exercise.
As part of its endeavour, the Naidu-led National Democratic Alliance-dominated Andhra Pradesh Assembly, in November last year, passed bills scrapping a three-decade-old rule barring aspirants with more than two children from contesting panchayat and municipal polls.
In January, Naidu took his efforts to push people to have more children to the next level. During Sankranti celebrations at his native village Naravaripalle near Tirupati, Naidu had said he was working on policies to ensure that only those with more than two children could become a sarpanch, municipal councillor or mayor.
“Earlier, individuals with several children were barred from contesting the panchayat and other local body polls. What I am saying now is that those with a lower number of children cannot contest,” Naidu said, describing the move as a form of “encouragement”.
In an apparent reprimand to millennial couples, Naidu noted that highly educated and high-earning couples are adopting a ‘Double Income, No Kids (DINK)’ policy. “Your parents bore four to five children; you reduced it to one or two. Some smarter people now are saying, ‘Double Income, No Kids (DINK), let us enjoy’. If their parents had thought like them, they would not have come into this world,” he said
Naidu had also pointed out that many countries worldwide, while creating wealth and raised incomes, but “failed to realise the danger (of a falling population)”.
“Today, South Korea has a growth rate of 0.7 percent. It is the same situation in Japan and throughout Europe. The situation was not predicted. Now they need people, we have to send them. It came to that situation. So, (unlike them) we have to take the right decision at the right time,” Naidu told reporters.
By 2021, India’s total fertility rate (TFR) had declined to 1.91 per woman, below the replacement level of 2.1 per woman. In comparison, Andhra Pradesh’s fertility rate is only 1.5, according to state health and family welfare officials.
This decline is the reason for Naidu’s insistence on demographic management, a topic that was also reportedly discussed in the NITI Aayog governing council meeting in July attended by Naidu.
Addressing reporters at the Amaravati Secretariat later, Naidu had reiterated his commitment to ensuring a healthy population growth rate, saying that “two children at least criteria will be made the requirement legally to contest local body polls”.
“A large population was once seen as a burden. Now it is wealth and a resource. If the population goes on declining, we will have swanky airports, super highways but no people to use them,” the chief minister had said, presenting Andhra Pradesh’s Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) and other growth indicator figures.
Naidu projected that Andhra Pradesh’s TFR would decline to 1.07 by 2051 from the current 1.51 if the trend continued. “The state’s population is only expected to go up slightly from 5.38 crore to 5.41 crore by 2051,” he had then told reporters.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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Those already born don’t have jobs. What’s the use of creating more. As it is Telugus are among the largest immigrant groups in the US, because they simply don’t get jobs in their own states.