The government today said the birth rate in India is greater than that of China and said the country's population will cross China's by 2028.

"Yes. As per World Population Prospects - the 2012 revision, the population of India will cross the population of China by 2028," Health Minister JP Nadda told Rajya Sabha.

He was replying to a question whether the birth rate in India is greater than that of China and if this trend continues, India will surpass the population of China.

Nadda, however, said the population control measures taken by the government were not ineffective. "No. As a result of the efforts of the government, the decadal growth rate of the country has declined significantly from 21.54% for the period 1991-2000 to 17.64% during 2001-11. The total fertility rate also declined from 3.6 in 1991 to 2.3 in 2013 as per the Sample Registration System. 24 states/UTs have achieved the replacement TFR of 2.1 or less," Nadda said.

Elaborating on the strategies for attaining population stabilization and interventions under family planning programme, Nadda said that a scheme for home delivery of contraceptives by ASHAs has been launched while a scheme for ASHA to ensure spacing in births has also been made operational.

Nadda said that other initiatives include introduction of a new family planning method post partum IUCD (PPIUCD), dedicated family planning counsellors have been introduced amongst others.

Other ongoing interventions included assured delivery of family planning services, introduction national family planning Indemnity scheme, compensation scheme for sterlization acceptors, emphasis on spacing methods and others.