Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu on Monday proposed a unique solution to reduce the increasing dependency on robots in today's world -- have more children.
Stating that many educated couples were not having many children, he said that there was a need to do so.
“I used to advocate family planning. But now I am asking people to have more kids, because we educated families are not interested in having many kids. They are looking at it like a big task, as it is tough to raise children. If our previous generations' had the same process, we wouldn't be here today," Naidu said.
"Balance is necessary. If there is imbalance and a lack of youngsters, as we are witnessing in countries like Japan, we have to employ robots instead of humans," he added.
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However, Naidu's comments triggered off a controversy.
The Deccan Chronicle reported that YSRCP MLA RK Roja pointed out that Naidu himself, had stopped with Lokesh, while Lokesh also had only one son.
The DC report also quotes Congress leader Sunkara Padmasri saying, “How will he provide quality education and opportunities to the so-called manpower in the future."
This is not the first time that Naidu has made this claim.
"Youngsters are not marrying early. Even if they do, they do not have children as they don't want responsibilities early...If this goes on, we may become like Japan where there are more old than young. That is why I am saying it may better if you have one or two children more instead of opting for family planning," Naidu had said in January, 2015.
In March 2016, he repeated his claim, saying, "The state’s population is witnessing a down fall. It is not good for any progressive country. Now China and Japan are facing problem from population downfall. Previously, China and Japan followed family planning due to high population. But now majority of their people are old and there is huge shortfall in the number of youngsters. They have realised the problem and are encouraging more child births."