New Delhi: While addressing a World Population Day celebration in New Delhi, Union health minister, Ghulam Nabi Azad, suggested that providing electricity to villages for late night television shows can reduce population of India . The joke provoked laughter.

 “If there is electricity in every village, people will watch TV till late night and then fall asleep. They won’t get a chance to produce children. When there is no electricity, there is nothing else to do but produce babies,” he said.

The serious suggestions for population control from Azad were as follows.

• Delayed marriage till the age of 30-31 years
• Suitable time gap between two children

Azad holds that coercion was not acceptable for promoting family planning amd  favours the universal acceptance of small family norms.