Indian state offers prizes for sterilisation

Women in Rajasthan offered chance to win food processors and cars in effort to slow baby boom.

India mother child sterilisation

India has 1.2 billion people and is fast catching up with China as the world’s most populous nation. In an attempt to slow down the baby boom the state of Rajasthan, home to 68 million people, is offering prizes in exchange for sterilisation.

Now women can win anything from food processors to cars in exchange for being sterilised.

This latest effort by state officials has raised controversy as the procedure is still viewed with suspicion after the government introduced a forced sterilisation program the 1970s.

Al Jazeera’s Prerna Suri reports from the western state of Rajasthan.

Source: Al Jazeera