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| Himanta Biswa Sarma |
Guwahati; April 24: Assam government spokesperson Himanta Biswa Sarma today said different schemes launched by the health department had been successful in bringing down the state’s population growth rate below the national average.
“There were apprehensions among people that the schemes of the health department, like Janani Suraksha Yojana, would result in population explosion. However, the census data has shown that the population growth rate in Assam is below the national average,” Sarma said.
The provisional data of Census 2011 has shown the decadal growth rate of population in Assam as 16.93 per cent while the all-India average is 17.64 per cent. The rate was 18.92 per cent in the previous decade (1991-2001).
Sarma said to curb the population growth, the state government sterilised around one lakh women every year for the last five years.
“Through the sterilisation process, the National Rural Health Mission (NHRM) made a silent revolution in the state. The sterilisation policies have covered 1.5 lakh women and 19,000 men last year alone,” Sarma said. He added that if NHRM continued for another five years, the state would be an ideal place in terms of density of population.
On a different note, Sarma said the Congress had reached an understanding with some political parties to form the next government. “We have an understanding with a few political parties. However, I cannot spell out their names right now,” he said.
He also said the Congress did not go for any “seat-sharing” with any political party to fight the elections, but had some “political management”.
Sarma said while the Congress would win 55 to 60 seats in the Assembly elections, the AGP — the state’s largest regional party— did not have any hope of winning more seats than what it did in the 2006 elections. He also said the BJP and the AIUDF would be the gainers of the election.
Sarma said he would like to handle the Assam Accord Implementation portfolio if he won the Assembly elections and the Congress formed the next government. He said he had even requested chief minister Tarun Gogoi to let him handle the portfolio two years ago.
