In a bid to further stabilize the population in the country, all central ministries may set up Population Stabilisation Incentive Funds to incentivize the States which are taking positive measures to control population explosion.

The Planning Commission is likely to ask all the ministries to set up the funds during the current 12th Five Year Plan period. This additional allocation would be a kind of ‘untied fund’ available with the State governments, with the rider that with this money, works can be taken up in the same sector.

This will incentivize the states which have checked their population growth or are taking effective steps to continue to maintain this. This will also encourage other states with high rate of population growth to take necessary steps urgently, sources said.

“It is certain that population stabilization should be a an area of focus during the 12th Five Year Plan. All ministries namely Agriculture, Rural development, Railways, Road transport, Environment, Infrastructure sector, Women and Child development, Law and order (home) etc. get affected by ever-growing population. Thus, population stabilization should not be the concern of Health Ministry alone,” sources said.

There are eight States where crude birth rates are above 21 and Total Fertility Rate (TFR) above 2.5. – Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh Assam and Meghalaya. The situation amongst those accepting and accessing contraception services is the same as in the other States but there is still a large part of the population which is either not accessing or not accepting contraception for limiting family size.

According to a recent survey, five of the nine high focus states — Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and UP — still have fertility rate as high as above three children per woman, while two other states, Assam and Chhattisgarh, have a fertility rate of 2.6 and 2.9, respectively. Worryingly, of the 284 districts surveyed in the study, 164 have recorded TFR of above 3.1.

India's TFR has come down by 42 per cent from mid-1960s, according to the Health Ministry. The National Population Stabilization Fund says the population grew five times in the last 100 years. Projections are that by 2050, India will be home to 1613.8 million people compared to China's 1,417 million. India expects to reach population stabilization at 2.1 TFR by 2060, with 165 crore people.