Mumbai: Jain community worried over its slight decline in the percentage of Jain population has urged couples to have more than two children.
Census revealed Jain population noted in 2001 was 42 lakh of the total Indian population of 102 crores in 2001 while it rose up to 44 lakh in 2011 against India’s total 120 crore population, TOI reports.
In terms of the overall national population percentage, the Jain population has been declining from 0.40% in 2001 to 0.37% in 2011 a decline of 0.03%.
The National Family Health Survey data reveals the fertility rate (average number of children a woman can have during her childbearing years) among Jains is just 1.2, while for Hindus it is 2.13 and for Muslims 2.6.
Addressing a meeting of the Digambar Jain Mahasamiti in Indore last week the apex body of Digambar Jains, has made an appeal to young Jain couples calling them for ‘Hum do hamare teen’.
To help the couples, the Samiti has also announced financial assistance for those couples who will have more than two children. The Samiti has also decided to provide counselling for couples to reduce divorce rates wishing the community.
“We want couples to think about this issue. The Samiti has decided to bear the cost of educating the third child,” Ashok Badjatiya, Samiti National president said.
“There are many reasons why young couples do not want to have more children. One is financial implications, so if we as a community can help take care of that, we could encourage them to have more children,” Badjatiya added.
The rich people within the community would also soon create a pool of funds for the purpose to help couples he said.
The Digambar Jains present in at least 16 states across the nation plan to implement the plan to others Jains as well.
Digambara is one of the two schools of Jainism while the other one is called Swetambara.
Samiti member Jainesh Jhanjhari says it will be a great loss if Jain community suffers as Jainism is a very old religion.
Jhanjhari also said that the Samiti is making efforts to organise workshops for Jain youngsters of marriageable age to counsel them about life after marriage, so that cases of divorce could be brought down.
“The number of divorce cases are on the rise, and most of the times separation happens because small things were not handled properly, resulting in an escalation. We will also have a grievance redressal mechanism so that Jain youth can handle these challenges (related to marriage) well,” Jhanjhari said.