India’s population will shrink, largest states seeking Europe-like fertility drop: Sanjeev Sanyal

The latest market report highlights that India's population could start shrinking in a few years, with several of its largest states already having birth rates close to those of Europe and East Asia. Flagging that population-control thinking still runs through government policy, Sanjeev Sanyal, a member of the Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council, stated on September 24 that the country is already below the replacement level.

"In a few years' time, you will actually have a shrinking population," Sanyal stated at at News18 DEFCON 2026 . "There are very very few states in India where fertility is above the replacement rate, and it is crashing even in those states. So, as a country as a whole, we are below replacement rate, and even in the few states where it is above, it's falling."

According to Sanyal, policy has not caught up with these numbers. "You will be surprised that population-control type thinking is deeply seeped into our policies, even policies which have nothing to do with population," he stated.

He stated money was still being spent on population-control measures. "There are states in India and largest states where the fertility rate looks like Europe or East Asia, and yet we are still continuing spending 1000s of crores in perpetuating population control," Sanyal stated.

He additionally boosted concerns around district-level targets for sterilisation. District magistrates, he stated, were given such targets until very recently and probably still are.

Citing Andhra Pradesh as an example, he stated, "70 percent of all married women are sterilised."

Sanyal additionally pointed to China, which he stated faces a steep decline in headcount over the coming decades. "Starting 2030 to the end of this century, China will lose around 80 million people a decade in population. That is losing the population of Germany every single decade and there is very little they can do around this anymore," he stated.