Prime Minister Narendra Modi may have advocated the virtues of small family and family planning from the ramparts of Red Fort in New Delhi on Independence Day, but the Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh, it seems, thinks otherwise for it has decided to withdraw special allowance given to government employees who voluntarily follow family planning norms.

The decision was taken by the Finance department here on Thursday. It is among five other special allowances that the government has decided to stop with immediate effect.

The allowances which have been scrapped are bilingual promotion allowance, computer operation allowance, post-graduation allowance, cash handling allowance, project allowance (applicable only in Irrigation department) and allowance for voluntarily adopting family planning practices.

In his order, Additional Chief Secretary (Finance) Sanjiv Mittal has said that the government has been giving incentives in the form of encouragement allowance to many employees from time to time. After a review it has been found that these allowances are no longer relevant and should be scrapped, he added.

Many employees were getting two allowances — computer operation allowance of Rs 200 per month and family planning allowance between Rs 250 and Rs 650, depending on the pay band.  

“Most surprising is the decision to scrap family planning allowance for employees as it was an incentive for encouraging small families. On one hand the Prime Minister calls those having small families as desh bhakts, on the other, the Yogi Adityanath government has ‘penalised’ employees for adopting family planning methods,” said Secretariat Employees Association secretary Yadvendra Mishra.

He said there was resentment among the employees and demanded that at least family planning allowance be restored.