NEW DELHI, July 1 (UPI) -- Health officials in India say they will offer incentives to men and women who volunteer for sterilization in a bid to control the country's surging population.
The chief medical officer in Jhunjunu, 155 miles west of New Delhi, said he was hopeful the incentives of a car, motorcycles, television sets and cash payments would tempt at least 30,000 people to undergo sterilization, the British newspaper The Daily Telegraph reported Friday.
"We are confident that this idea will work well," Sitaram Sharma said of the scheme set to run for three months.
The incentives contributed by a local charitable trust include one Nano, the world's cheapest car, for the first volunteer, with five motorcycles and an equal number of color televisions and food blenders to be offered to subsequent candidates.
Others would be paid varying cash amounts in addition to the government's Family Welfare scheme, which pays $22.80 to those volunteering to undergo a vasectomy.
India's population of 1.21 billion is expected to overtake China's by 2030, with more people living in the country than in Bangladesh, Brazil, Indonesia, Pakistan and the United States combined.
