Telugu Desam Party MP Kalisetty Appalanaidu on Saturday announced an incentive of Rs 50,000 or a cow for women in Andhra Pradesh who give birth to a third child, reported ANI, quoting the state Information and Public Relations department.

Speaking at an event in his constituency, Vizianagaram, on the occasion of International Women’s Day, the MP announced that Rs 50,000 from his salary will be given to a woman if she has a third child who is a girl. If that child is a boy, she will be given a cow.

This came on the same day Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu announced that maternity leave would be granted for all employees irrespective of the number of children they have, reported Deccan Herald.

Until now, women employees received six months of paid maternity leave for their first two deliveries.

“My announcement follows calls by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Naidu, on the steps to be taken for population growth along with the offers given by both of them for having a third child,” Appalanaidu told The Indian Express. “We are asking women to have more children, and we will provide incentives if a third child is born.”

In the past months, the Andhra Pradesh chief minister has raised concern about the declining birth rate in the state on several instances.

On January 6, Naidu urged citizens to learn from the mistakes of countries like South Korea and Japan, where birth rates have dropped significantly, according to India Today. He also pointed out that the birth rate in Kuppam city of the state’s Chittoor district had fallen to 1.5, below the ideal rate of two.

He said that couples are now deciding against having children in favour of personal wealth. “Had your parents thought like that, would you have come into this world now?”

In November, the Andhra Pradesh Assembly scrapped the three-decade-old rule that barred those with more than two children from contesting urban local body elections.

This came against the backdrop of the total fertility rate in the state slumped to 1.6 against the optimal rate of 2.1, said minister Nadendla Manohar in the Assembly while introducing the bill to scrap the rule. The population of the children aged below 15, which was 28.60% in 2015-’16, slid to 26.50% while that of the elderly had increased.

In October, Naidu had urged families in the state to consider having more children.