Guwahati: An expert questioned the findings of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) which showed a decrease in the fertility rate of Muslim women in Assam.
A professor at the Gautati University population study center, Dr.
Dilip Kalita, said the NFHS-5 data was “doubtful”.
His comment came when the state government led by BJP pushed forward his policy for population control in the state, especially among immigrant Muslims, which constituted 34% of the Assam population.
Speaking at the webinar organized by Janasankhya Samadhan Uttar Purba Khetra Foundation on the “explosion of the population and the future of Assam” on the night of the world population on Tuesday in conjunction with the University of Cotton Student Union, said Professional Kalita, “sample data surveys and examples varying data.
While data Censuses are collected from the survey of each household, survey data samples are based on samples located or identified.
So the data reflected for various parameters in connection with the total level of fertility of Muslim women shows the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) as a doubt decline.
“To prove, Professor Kalita said if someone has four wives, each gave birth to four to five children, not considered during the sample survey.
“Under the sample survey, only one or last woman is considered,” he said.
He said teenagers’ marriages among Muslims were 14.9, whereas, among Hindus, only 4.5 percent.
In the Barpeta district, adolescent marriages among Muslims around 14 percent, in Bongaiga Regency, while in the Dhubri district, 22 percent, 16 percent in Darrang and Hojai districts, 23 percent in South Salmara Regency and 15 percent in the Nagaon district.
“With regard to the family planning scheme, female sterilization among Muslims is only 4 percent while it is 12 percent among Hindus.
This data stipulates that Muslim TPR has been described incorrectly and is a false narrative.” The webinar was inaugurated by Dr.
Diganta Kumar Das, Registrar, Cotton University, which in its first speech stated that education could play an important role in population control, but a person had to act practically while implementing the population control law because this problem was very complicated and sensitive.
Chairman Janasankhya Samadhan Uttar Purba Bharat, Sailendra Pandey, urged all participants to participate in this movement to protect the interests of Assam’s indigenous peoples.