A.P. Assembly passes Bills scrapping two-child norm for contesting local body polls

The move has been initiated in view of the decreasing population of children aged below 15 in the State, says Nadendla Manohar

The Andhra Pradesh (AP) Legislative Assembly has done away with the rule that candidates having more than two children are ineligible to contest the elections for local bodies, on Monday, by passing the AP Panchayat Raj (Amendment) Bill, 2024 and the AP Municipal Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2024.

The Bills were moved by Ministers Nadendla Manohar (on behalf of Deputy Chief Minister and Panchayat Raj and Rural Development Minister K. Pawan Kalyan) and P. Narayana (Municipal Administration and Urban Development).

The A.P. government had imposed the restriction years ago by amending the AP Panchayat Raj Act, the AP Municipal Corporations Act, 1955 and the Municipalities Act, 1965 rendering candidates with more than two children ineligible to contest for membership of the respective local bodies and it had since continued.

Speaking on the PR (Amendment) Bill, Mr. Manohar said the PR Act No.13 of 1994 which was passed on May 30, 1994 imposed the two-children norm for those seeking election to the Gram Panchayats, Mandal Praja Parishads and Zilla Parishads after taking into consideration the need to rein in the burgeoning population and its impact on food security and employment opportunities.

Fertility rate dips

Three decades later, the rule had to be disbanded as the State’s Total Fertility Rate fell from 3.7 in 1992-93 to 1.6 now, as per the latest National Family Health Survey, against the optimal rate of 2.1. The population of the children aged below 15 which was 28.60% in 2015-16 slid to 26.50% while that of the elderly had increased, he said.

To ensure that the State had a young population in the future, the government took the progressive step of doing away with the aforementioned rule as the days of family planning were gone, he added.

Members welcomed the move, saying that the State could not afford to ignore the population trend. 

Published - November 18, 2024 08:30 pm IST