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MUMBAI — Each day, gray-haired men and women shuffle into the offices of Bombay Parsi Council, the governing council for the Parsi-Zoroastrians of India. Each day, they huddle behind rickety desks, stacked with dusty ledgers and pictures of their prophet, and pray for Parsi children to boost their rapidly dwindling numbers.

These prayers are not merely idle wishes. Parsis in India, whose identity stems from an Aryan ethnic group descended from Persia and a religious belief in Zoroastrianism, fear the extinction of their community if their population doesn’t significantly increase.

As India’s population more than tripled in 60 years, from 318 million in 1941 to a billion in 2001, the number of Parsis, also known as Zoroastrians, fell 39 percent in the same period, from 114,000 to 69,000 in the 2001 census, the most recent one that categorized the population by religion.

“At religious festivals and events, we see smaller and smaller numbers of young faces,” said Keki Daruwalla, member of the National Minorities Commission. “Over a third of our community is over 65. For each birth, three people die. Some say it is already too late.”

In 2003, the Parsi council started a free fertility clinic in Mumbai for Parsi couples, offering treatment that includes up to three rounds of in vitro fertilization, or I.V.F., which can cost up to 200,000 rupees, or $3,200, a round. So far, the Parsi council has spent 8.8 million rupees, or $142,000, since the program began, which has resulted in the births of 222 babies from I.V.F. treatments alone.

In less than two weeks, the Indian government is set to begin a similar program to save this minority community from vanishing. Thanks to the efforts of Mr. Daruwalla and the National Minorities Commission, the government has agreed to spend 100 million rupees for the Jiyo-Parsi (Live Parsi) Scheme, through which Parsi couples can receive free fertility consultations and treatment at designated centers around the country.

The program will begin on Dec. 29, coinciding with the World Zoroastrian Congress in Mumbai, where Parsi community leaders will publicize the program.

Administration of the program will be overseen by Parzor, a program in New Delhi that was initiated by Unesco in 1999 to preserve the Parsi-Zoroastrian heritage in India. Parzor is charged with empaneling the final team of doctors and hospitals where the government program’s services will be rendered.

At first, the dwindling Parsi demographics were not Parzor’s concern, as its mandate was to preserve community libraries, art and culture. But while traveling to historically Parsi-dominated areas, in south Gujarat and Maharashtra – the two states are home to 94 percent of India’s Parsis – staff members came across empty homes, empty villages, dilapidated sanatoriums, derelict gardens and deserted meeting spaces.

“Parsis would walk up to us and say, ‘All this art and culture is all very well, but what use will it be when our buildings are empty?’ That’s when we realized we had to address this problem as well,” said Shernaz Cama, member of the executive council at Parzor.

As it began studying the Parsi population with experts, Parzor discovered Parsis tended to delay marriage, as young girls routinely waited to get an education and get their careers on track before marrying.

“There is no stigma attached to unmarried people among Parsis,” said Dr. Pervin Dadachandji, a Parsi psychiatrist who counsels Parsi couples who are having fertility problems. “Marriage is not the final goal, and in a twisted way, it has worked against us.”

Dr. Dadachandji said the high cost of living in a place like Mumbai also discouraged couples from marrying. “In Mumbai’s tough real estate market, where these young people mostly live, they want a home before they marry and have children,” she said.

As a result, by the time Parsi couples contemplate children, their advanced ages are often associated with a host of fertility problems, including low sperm count, fibroids and polyps, said Dr. Anahita Pandole, the chosen doctor of the Mumbai council, who has delivered all 222 of the I.V.F. babies and counseled a few hundred others who are trying to have children.

Parzor is still determining the logistics of the Jiyo-Parsi program, but Dr. Pandole, who will also be working with the government, said that when a Parsi couple comes in for a consultation, they will first be put through a battery of baseline tests, with all bills sent directly to the government.

“We ask couples to come earlier rather than later,” she said. “The faster we zero-in on the problem, the faster we solve it. Most couples do not need I.V.F. They only need counseling and reassurance to keep trying.”

Though many Parsis welcome the new government efforts to grow the Parsi population, others see it as deepening a fissure within the community over what it means to be a true Parsi.

Currently, both the council and government programs are open only to couples in which the husband is Parsi, as the offspring of Parsi women are not legally recognized as Parsi if the women marry outside the community. Liberal Parsis and women’s rights groups have been lobbying for a change in the legal definition that would allow all mixed-marriage children into the Parsi fold, thereby increasing the community’s chances of survival.

For some hardliners, even the government’s definition is too lax, since it includes Parsis with non-Aryan parentage, but they are hoping that if the Jiyo-Parsi Scheme is successful, then it would lessen the need to turn to more drastic solutions that the liberal Parsis are advocating.

Mr. Daruwalla dismissed the controversy over what constitutes a Parsi identity, saying that expanding the category would solve nothing. The main issue, he said, is that the community is aging fast and too few Parsis are being born.

As a result, the council in Mumbai spares no expense to get what it considers true Parsi couples to procreate. “We ask no questions,” said Dinshaw Rusi Mehta, chairman of the council. “We just pay the bill.”

Farhad Barucha, 27, and his wife, Kainaz, 25, a young couple working at large corporations, say they are indebted to the council for giving them a home in an apartment building full of other Parsis so that they could start a family, within months after their marriage in January.

“My parents live in a tiny one-bed apartment in South Mumbai. There was no space for my wife and me,” said Mr. Barucha. Now that they have a home, they are looking forward to expanding their family.

But this is not all that the council offers to Parsi couples, said Mr. Mehta. “We’ve incentivized having children. The council gives a monthly stipend for every additional child – 3,000 rupees for the second and 5,000 rupees for the third. We provide this aid until the child turns 18. We also give tuition and medical help on an as-needed basis through the growing years,” he said.

“This is really a village raising its children, to make sure that we continue to exist,” he said.

Priyanka Pathak-Narain is a freelance journalist and writer in Mumbai.