POPULATION OF INDIA

Man is the creator of all the wealth, said Karl Marx, and without man, all other
resources remain ideal. Thus, man is the central focus points of all development efforts. Man
produces wealth and wealth is produced for the use of mankind. Hence, population of a
country is a crucial factor in the development of its economy. The literal meaning of
population is the whole number of people or inhabitants in a country or region. Among the
countries, India ranks second in population and seventh in land area. It has 15% of the
population and 2.3% of the area of the world. Indias national income which is barely two
percent of the total global income clearly shows the tremendous strain of population.

According to the 2011 census, the total population of India was around 1210 million
(121.0 crore) as against 1028 million (102.8 crore) persons in 2001. From this, it is clear that
Indias population is increasing at a vast rate. Is population a boon or a curse? Indias
population explosion is a curse and is damaging to the development of the country and its
society. Population of India is a big problem of Indian economic growth. India, on verge of
becoming a developed country, I still, a developing one. The reason behind
is-Overpopulation.

The main factors affecting the population change are the birth rate, death rate and
migration. The population growth potential in India is high on two counts: first the base
population is large and second, a reduction of death rate without a corresponding decline in
the birth rate is highly improbable. Mortality has become primarily a function of the
application of medical science and can be spectacularly reduced by measures of sanitary
reform, better transportation and distribution facilities. Reducing the birth rate is a much
more complex matter involving radical social adjustment which has hitherto been resistant to
change. Unfortunately, the death rate is declining, and there are reasonable chances that it
will continue to decline owing to continuing improvements in the sanitary and health
conditions of the masses. This implies that if birth rate does not fall, the gap between birth
and death rates will continue to widen and India will be faced with the danger of a rapidly
increasing multitude, or what is often called the population explosion. Thus rapidly
increasing population of India is a result of prevailing high birth rates and a large decline in
the death rate.

Population change = (Births + Immigration) (Deaths + Emigration)

The resources do not increase as the population increases. India currently faces a
vicious cycle of population explosion and poverty. One of the most Important reasons for this
population increases in India is poverty. Due to poverty, the infant mortality rate among such
families like food and medical resources. Thus, they produce more children assuming that not
all of them would be able to survive. The end result is a mounting increase in the population
size of India. The practice of early marriage is another factor for continues increase in birth
rate. A large majority of girls in India are married during the most fertile period 15 and18
years of age. This gives a wider reproductive period and continues to high birth rate.
Widespread improvident maternity (child bearing by mothers who have already borne three
or more children) and lack of conscious family planning have also kept birth rate in India
very high.

Death rate in India has declined over the past few decades due to a number of factors
such as the control of epidemics, due to widespread increase in medical and health facilities.
Many dreaded diseases of the past like malaria and TB have been brought under control while
smallpox, etc. have been completely eradicated. Therefore, it is clear that India is passing
through a period of population explosion due to her continuing high birth rate and a sharp
fall in the death rate.

Due to increased population, the educational facilities are very scarce. A lot of
families prefer having a son rather than a daughter. As a result, a lot of families have more
children than they actually want or can afford, resulting in increased poverty, lack of
resources, and most importantly, an increased population. Hence, illiteracy and lack of
awareness creates a thought that having more children, will give a secure future to the parents
and the society, but, what is the use if the children themselves do not get the desired
facilities? What is the use, if they will be the burden for the society? The answer lies within.
They can serve the country only if they get the desired facilities like food, shelter and most
importantly-Education. With the spread of education and family consciousness, it is
expected that more and more people will take recourse to birth control measures thus
reducing the birth rate in future.

India, being a developing country, has a limited number of jobs available. With the
increasing population, unemployment rates are bound to rise even further. Resources are
always limited. And in a developing and highly populous country like India, resources are
even scarcer. Population explosion results in the shortage of even the most basic resources
like food. If India will not control its population very soon we will have problem of feeding
this huge population very soon. Either we need to learn to manage human resources quickly
or we need to decrease our population growth rate ASAP. We as Indian citizen need to
understand our responsibilities. India is free democratic country this does not mean that
citizens do not have some responsibility.

The population increase has lead to air and water pollution, unemployment, poverty,
lack of educational resources, and even malnourished women and children. The technological
development of India has lead not only to medical advancements, but also to an increase in
the number of factories, that has lead to air and water pollution. According to an article by the
World Bank Organization, Delhi, the capital of India is one of the worlds most polluted
cities. As the population increased grows, more and more forests are cleared.

Rapid population growth is an obstacle to Indias economic development. India today

is grossly populated. And since the country is short of capital and technology to fully exploit
its resources, it means that most of the Indians live in poverty, face unemployment and suffer
from ill health. No wonder that in spite of half a century of development, over a fourth of
Indias population lives below poverty line. It is now universally agreed that an effective
control of population growth is necessary if our development effort is to yield any result.
How Indias population hinders the development of an economic growth. The following ways
are: Increasing population has eaten up much of the additional income that has been
generated in the economy during the five-year plans; fast growing population has resulted in
a serious shortage of food; increasing burden of unproductive population; population growth
hampers the growth of capital formation; it lowers the labour efficiency. It shows that Indias
population is overpopulated.

Rapid population growth has thus hampered economic growth in India and this
prevented any substantial reduction in poverty of the masses. But poverty itself is also the
cause of rapid population growth. The problem of Indias population affects almost every
aspect of economic life and has a profound significance for the future of the country. The
government of India has been organizing several programs for limiting the increase in
population and has been spending millions of dollars on controlling the birth rate. Some of
the programs have been successful; still to reach the sustainable rate. Among such measures
are included spread of education that enables people to think and take rational decision
regarding family size; expansion in employment facility for women that makes them
economically more independent and capable of making effective rational choices regarding
the number of children they would like to have without compromising their economic status;
reduction in infant mortality rate; expanding education for the female children and providing
them equal access to their all socio-economic needs as are provided to the male children thus
removing the gender bias; raising the age of marriage; and propagation of family planning
and small family norms.

Today India is 2nd largest country in terms of population. Now a days increasing
population of India is a big problem. Increasing population in India without any limit is one
of the problems behind the lacking development in the country. In India, unchecked growth
of the population is more of a hindrance to the development of the economy. The major
factors affecting the population increase of India are the rapidly increase birth rate and
decreasing death rates. Birth rates will fall only when people themselves realise the evils of
large family and volunteer for family planning. Family planning means having babies by
choice not by chance. The success of family planning greatly depends on women and their
status. Thus, it is imperative for the women to be educated so that they can decide on the
number of children they want and be aware of the available birth control measures.

A proper population policy should aim at two things- rapid economic development of
the country and check on the further growth of our numbers. The government of India has
adopted several measures to control the birth rate through the family planning measures.
Family planning is the best method of achieving the second desideration. Thus family
planning implies conscious effort at limiting the size of the family.

To conclude the chronic and widespread misery of the Indian people is due to the
existence of too many people for the available means of subsistence and situation gets worse
instead of better. A rapidly increasing population aggravates the poverty, worsens the
unemployment, reduces the per capita income proportion of unproductive people, hampers
capital formation and makes the people inefficient. The population of India has been explored
and discovered to be acute and speedily growing more serious. Therefore, an all efforts have
to be made to reduce the birth rate through comprehensive programme of family planning so
that sufficient resources are released for the economic development of the country.

Bibliography:

http://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2851&context=lcp

http://libinfo.uark.edu/aas/issues/1951v4/v4a18.pdf

http://www.populationofindia.info/

http://blog.oureducation.in/increasing-population-of-india-is-problem/

http://www1bpt.bridgeport.edu/~darmri/population_explosion.html

From:

Rupal Agarwal