A claim stating the state of Uttar Pradesh has implemented or passed a law prohibiting people who have more than two children from availing government jobs and schemes has gone viral on social media.
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(Source: X (formerly Twitter)/Screenshot)
How did we find out the truth?: Using 'UP two child policy' as keywords, we looked for more information related to the claim.
We came across several news reports from July 2021, which mentioned that Uttar Pradesh (UP) Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had introduced a draft bill titled 'UP Population Control Bill (2021-2030)'.
The report was published in 2021.
(Source: The Times of India/Screenshot)
As per the report, the bill intends to penalise, or disincentivise, couples having more than two children, by barring them from availing government schemes and subsidies, prohibiting them from contesting local polls, among other conditions.
However, we found no recent reports or any information that corroborated the viral claim.
We looked for more details regarding the bill on the Uttar Pradesh State Law Commission's (UPSLC) website, which confirmed that it had been introduced in 2021 and carried the full draft bill.
Here, too, we found nothing to confirm that the bill had been passed or implement.
To verify this, we explored the Uttar Pradesh government's website, which led us to the website of the state's legislative assembly.
A keyword search for 'Population Control' under the 'Acts' section did not return any results, confirming that the Bill had not been passed.
The bill has not been passed.
(Source: Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly/Screenshot)
Conclusion: The viral claim that the UP government has passed or implemented a two-child policy is false.
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