Poverty forcing people to sell daughters: Shanta Kumar

DHARAMSHALA: Expressing concern over rising population in the country, former chief minister Shanta Kumar penned a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday in which he stated that it was crucial to regulate population growth as the country had highest number of poor people and in many cases families had been forced to sell their daughters to fight poverty.
“Poverty in some states has touched a level where people have sold their daughters for their survival.A few days back a daughter of Assam was found in Himachal in a case of flesh trade,” Kumar said in the letter.
Kumar lauded the efforts of BJP government to scrap Article 370 in Kashmir and said, “After listening to the speech delivered by Prime Minister on the Independence Day I am confident that next target of the government will be population control.”
“In the past few years population in India has witnessed an increase of over 1.5 crore. This is the reason why public welfare schemes could not yield desired results,” the letter mentioned.
“As per the records of United Nations, India has maximum number of people who sleep with an empty stomach,” the letter stated.
The global hunger index shows approximately 18 crore Indians are forced to sleep with an empty stomach daily,” the letter stated.
Kumar is the senior most leader of BJP in Himachal. He had served as Union cabinet minister under former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. He was sitting MP from Kangra constituency till last year. Recently, he announced his retirement from electoral politics.