Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Thursday urged the minority community in the state to adopt a “decent family planning” policy to bring down poverty and control social problems, also warned that there would be conflicts over land in future if the state’s population continued to explode.
The statement comes against the backdrop of eviction drives carried out at some places which drew criticism from some minority-based organisation.
“We want to work with the minority Muslim community to control population. The root cause of issues such as poverty, land encroachment etc., lies in uncontrolled population growth. I think we can put an end to a lot of social problems in Assam if the Muslim community adopts decent family planning norms,” the CM said in Guwahati.
He further said that the government would take some more steps to encourage population and urged AIUDF and AAMSU to work on this front and need support from all communities.
He also added that he wants community support to spread education among Muslim women to reduce poverty and control the population and hopes the community will respect the government’s stand, work towards this.
