Essays

Next to the People's Republic of China, India is the most populous country in the whole world. In 2011, India, with 1,210.193,422 (1.21 billion) people is the second most populous country in the world, while China is on the top with over 1,350,044,605 (1.35 billion) people. The figures show that India represents almost 17.31% of the world's population, which means one out of six people on this planet live in India. India occupies 2.4% of the world's land area and supports over 17,5% of the world's population Although, the crown of the world's most populous country is on China's head for decades, India is all set to take the number one position by 2030. With the population growth rate at 1.58%, India is predicted to have more than 1.53 billion people by the end of 2030. In 1952, India was the first country in the world to launch a national programme, emphasizing family planning to the extent necessary for reducing birth rates "to stabilize the population at a level consistent with the requirements of national economy". The population of India at that time had been around 342 million. The population comprises 623,7 million males and 586.5 million females, according to a provisional 2011 Census report. China, the most populous nation, accounts for 19.4 per cent of the global population.

Interestingly, the addition of 181 million people during 2001-2011 is slightly lower than the total population of Brazil, the fifth most populous country in the world. The country's headcount is almost equal to the combined population of the United States, Indonesia, Brazil, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Japan put together. The population has increased by more than 181 million during the decade 2001-2011. However, the growth rate in 2011 is 17.64 per cent in comparison to 21.15 per cent in 2001— a decrease of 3-90 percentage points from 21.54 to 17.64 per cent. This means the 2001-2011 period is the first decade — with exception of 1911-1921 — which has actually added lesser population compared to the previous decade.

Among the states and Union territories, Uttar Pradesh is the most populous state with 199 million people and Lakshadweep the least populated at 64,429. The combined population of UP and Maharashtra is bigger than that of the US, The Census indicated a continuing preference for male children over female children. The latest child sex ratio is 914 female against 1,000 male—the lowest since Independence, According to the data, literates constitute 74 per cent of the total population aged seven and above. The literacy rate has gone up from 64.83 per cent in 2001 to 74.04 per cent in 2011 showing an increase of 9.21 per cent.

Concerned over the possibility of the country's population touching 1.8 billion by 2045, the government is taking various steps to rein in total fertility rates. The steps taken to stabilize population include the adoption of a National Population Policy, constitution of the National Commission on Population, registration of the National Population Stabilization Fund and constitution of an Empowered Action Group for focused attention on eight demographically weaker states. The immediate objective of the national Population Policy is to address the unmet needs for contraception, health care infrastructure, and health personnel, and to provide integrated service delivery for basic reproductive and child health care. Most importantly, education is the key to greater awareness in people, which will ultimately control population. This is evident from the tart that Kerala which has an overall literacy rate of 90.92% and female literacy rate of 87,72% forms 2,76% of the Indian population, while Uttar Pradesh which has an overall literacy rate of 57.36% and female literacy rate of 42,98% constitutes 16.49% of the Indian population.

The major cause of this population explosion is the widening gap between the birth and the death rate due to increased medical facilities. Another social cause in India that contributes to the growth of population in India is the low age of marriage. Early marriages should be discouraged at any cost which can be done only through education and spreading social awareness to the illiterate masses through various means such as the television and the cinema. This brings us to another related problem that of high illiteracy rate. Due to illiteracy, measures like family planning get defeated. Education makes people broad-minded, liberal, open to new ideas, logical and rational. It helps to keep away orthodoxy and superstitious thinking. Other causes of population explosion are joint family system, lack of responsibility of the young couples in the joint family to bring up their children, lack of recreational facilities and lack of information.

The uncontrollable and unplanned growth of population affects the living standard of the people. Our spectacular progress made in agriculture and industry has been minimized by the population explosion. The effects of population growth on the Indian economy have been immense. It has resulted in low growth of per capita income. Greater the population, lower is the per capita income. The growth rate of population of 1.58 percent in 2011 is relatively close to the growth rate of national income which is 2.3 per cent. This does not leave a wider gap and hence, the per capita income increases at a low rate of 1.2 per cent per annum.

There is also food scarcity problem as it is very hard to keep pace with the demands of the fast growing population India would require about 130 million tons of rice in 2020, while the requirement of wheat would turn 110 million tons in 2020 against production of only 80 million tons in 2009. Ironically, the total cultivable land is fixed at 140 million hectares in the country.

Increasing population has also led to declining Man-Land-ratio. Due to additional 181 million people in 2011 census, the density of population has increased from 324 per square kilometer according to 2001 census to 382 persons per square kilometer in 2011.

In fact, India was the first country to start a government supported family planning programme in the 1950s at a time when the world was not even aware of the impending problem. In 1977, the Family Planning Programme was renamed as Family Welfare Programme due to the mishandling of the policy during the notorious emergency period of 1975, by the top politicians and government officials. A new approach is given out with the introduction of target-free programme at the grass root level in consultation with the health centres and sub centres, panchayat members etc Even the NGOs are being involved to spread awareness and education among the masses. The progress in controlling and containing population has been very slow when compared with the progress of China whose fertility rate has been reduced to 1.7 from 5.82.

The road is long and sturdy for India but it is not an impossible destination to arrive at- The government has to adopt strict measures tike not recruiting the persons having more than two children, spread education and awareness among women etc. People should be made aware of the repercussions of population explosion and if that does not help, fear of law can also be used as a last resort in order to find ways to control the population of the country.