Mumbai: The Centre’s Jiyo Parsi scheme, launched to address the declining Parsi-Zoroastrian population, has facilitated 534 births since 2014-15, Union Minister for Parliamentary Affairs and Minority Affairs Kiren Rijiju informed the Rajya Sabha on Monday.
Rijiju said 582 community members had benefited from assistance for infertility treatment, childbearing, childbirth and post-natal care. Since 2018-19, another 1,055 beneficiaries have received financial support under the scheme’s ‘Health of Community’ component. The Centre has spent Rs37.43 crore on the programme since its inception.
Census data shows India’s Parsi population stood at 89,490 in 1891, peaked at 1,14,791 in 1941, declined to 69,601 in 2001 and further fell to 57,264 in 2011.
At a National Commission for Minorities presentation in Mumbai, WZO Trust Funds chairman Dinshaw Tamboly attributed the decline to late marriages, falling birth rates, infertility, a high proportion of unmarried people and inter-community marriages.
Rijiju said the births under Jiyo Parsi offered hope of stabilising the community’s population, adding that independent third-party evaluations had found the scheme successful.
Pearl Mistry, who represented PARZOR Foundation, which implemented the programme until 2022-23, said 428 babies had been born under it by then. She said such programmes required decades and a change in mindset, as convincing couples to have more children was “a different ballgame”.
The scheme was initially implemented through PARZOR, the Bombay Parsi Punchayet, Tata Institute of Social Sciences and the Ministry of Minority Affairs. It is not implemented through Direct Benefit Transfer. The Ministry also conducts publicity campaigns, workshops, interaction sessions, registration and bio-authentication drives and disseminates information through major Parsi newspapers, though no direct financial assistance is provided under the awareness and outreach component.
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