Assam enforces 2-child norm in new policy, ST/SC, tea tribes get 3-child relaxation

Guwahati, Dec 6: The Assam government on Friday notified the Population and Women Empowerment Policy of Assam (Amendment), 2025, reinforcing the two-child norm for government jobs, self-help groups, and electoral participation.

However, for Scheduled Tribes (ST), Scheduled Castes (SC), Tea Garden Tribes, and the Moran and Motok communities, the ceiling has been revised to three children. The amended norms will take effect immediately.

According to the notification issued by the Health and Family Welfare Department today, candidates with only two children will be eligible for government employment, and all existing government servants must strictly adhere to the two-child norm to serve as role models for society.

Also, individuals, male or female, who marry below the legal age, will become ineligible for government jobs or State employment-generation schemes.

The existing ceiling has been revised for ST, SC, Tea Garden Tribes, and the Moran and Motok communities for both employment and SHG incentives.

Under the revised framework, Self-Help Groups whose members uniformly maintain the two-child policy will receive special government incentives in the form of grants by the government. This benefit, too, is extended to three-child families within the listed communities.

A significant part of the amendment deals with electoral qualifications. The government has signalled its intent to legislate provisions to bar individuals with more than two children from contesting Panchayat and municipal board elections. Similar norms may be framed for other statutory bodies and committees.

To promote what it calls an educated society, the government may also prescribe minimum educational standards for contesting local body polls.

The notification also states that Assam will urge the Central government to ensure that MLAs of the State adhere to family-planning norms, and proposes the two-child standard for all contestants to the State Legislature. MLAs violating the norm, that is, those with more than two children, may face disqualification and future disbarment from contesting elections.

The policy clarifies that all incentives and restrictions will apply prospectively, and only in cases involving two live children. The two-child norm will cover children who are born or legally adopted. Parents cannot circumvent the rule by disowning a child, which the notification calls a deliberate act not eligible for exemption.

Multiple births – such as twins as second children, or triplets as the first set – along with cases involving differently abled children, may be considered for case-by-case exemptions.

The enhanced three-child limit for ST, SC, Tea Garden Tribes, the Moran and Motok communities has been uniformly extended across all relevant provisions of the policy.

The amendment, signed by Commissioner and Secretary Dr P Ashok Babu, comes into force with immediate effect. The Mission Director of National Health Mission, Assam has been asked to upload the notification in the website of NHM/Health and Family Welfare Department.