"Educate Women, Girls To Control Population, Fertility Rate": Nitish Kumar

Reacting to an announcement that the Centre may bring a law to control population, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar asserted on Monday that birth rates could be better controlled by educating women and girls rather than enacting laws.

Mr Kumar made the remark in Patna in reply to questions from journalists who sought his views on Union Minister Prahlad Singh Patel's recent statement in Raipur that a population control law will be brought soon by the central government.

"Making a law for population control will not serve any purpose at all ... Population control can only be achieved by educating women and girls. The fertility rate can be checked only through education and awareness," he said during his weekly outreach programme.

Mr Kumar said the the fertility rate in Bihar has come down to three percent from about 4 percent earlier. He said, "It all happened because of our consistent effort to educate women and girls in the state. I hope that it will decrease further to two per cent in the next four-five years".

He cited the instance of China where one child policy was in vogue for many years. "It has now changed from one to two child policy", Mr Kumar added.

Bihar is the third most populous state in the country and is the most densely populated one.

Asked to comment on the suicide of five members of a family in Samastipur district on Sunday, Mr Kumar said it was "very tragic" and the departments concerned are already investigating the incident Preliminary investigation into the incident had revealed that the family was in debt.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)