NITI Aayog set to start drafting roadmap for population stabilisation

Syllabus subtopic:.

• Role of women and women's organization, population and associated issues, poverty and developmental issues, urbanization, their problems and their remedies.
• Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation.

Prelims and Mains focus: about the NITI Aayog’s move and its significance; India’s population crisis; NITI Aayog: structure and mandate

News: Invoking the Prime Minister’s concern over the rising population, the NITI Aayog is set to start a process of drafting the roadmap for population stabilisation in the country.

Context

• NITI Aayog’s move comes four months after the Prime Minister voiced concern over the issue.

About the process

• Taking the first step, the Aayog is organising a national consultation on ‘Realising the vision of population stabilization: leaving no one behind’ on Friday.

• The recommendations from the consultation will contribute to a NITI Aayog working paper to help achieve India’s vision of attaining population stabilization, as voiced by PM Modi on 15 August 2019.

• The consultative meeting being organised in partnership with Population Foundation of India (PFI) will bring together senior officials, experts and subject matter specialists to discuss ways and means of strengthening India’s population policy and family planning programmes.

India’s current population scenario

• India with a current population size of 1.37 billion is the second-most populous country in the world.

• India’s birth rates are falling but the population continues to grow due to the fact that more than 30 per cent of the population is young and in the reproductive age group.

Note: to read about India’s population crisis in detail, click on the link below:

https://qz.com/india/1051533/india-is-unprepared-for-a-near-future-when-it-will-be-the-worlds-most-populous-country/

About NITI Aayog

• The Government, in January 2015, replaced Planning Commission with NITI Aayog (National Institution for Transforming India).

• Aim: to achieve Sustainable Development Goals and to enhance cooperative federalism by fostering the involvement of State Governments of India in the economic policy-making process using a bottom-up approach.

Role of NITI Aayog:

The institution has to provide governments at the central and state levels with relevant strategic and technical advice across the spectrum of key elements of policy. This includes matters of national and international import on the economic front, dissemination of best practices from within the country as well as from other nations, the infusion of new policy ideas and specific issue-based support. The institution has to be able to respond to the changing and more integrated world that India is part of.

Composition of NITI Aayog:

• Chairperson: Prime Minister of India as the Chairperson.
• Governing Council comprising the Chief Ministers of all the States and Lt. Governors of Union Territories.
• Regional Councils will be formed to address specific issues and contingencies impacting more than one state or a region. These will be formed for a specified tenure.
• The Regional Councils will be convened by the Prime Minister and will comprise of the Chief Ministers of States and Lt. Governors of Union Territories in the region. These will be chaired by the Chairperson of the NITI Aayog or his nominee.
• Experts, specialists and practitioners with relevant domain knowledge as special invitees nominated by the Prime Minister.