Increasing Population in India is a Problem

On Dec 4, 2016

The problem of increasing population in India has become a matter of deep concern. India is one of the most populous countries of the world, in which over 17 % of the total population of the world resides.

The present population of India is over 1.22 billion. Though the population of India is second largest in the world, it is still increasing at a rapid speed. Studies suggests that will become the country with largest population within few decades. The constant surge in population can be seen by analyzing the data of past 3-4 decades.

India’s population in 1971 was 550 million which increased to 684 million, in 1981. In 1991 census the figure had jumped to 845 million. Preparations are now on for the new census. In land area, India occupies only 2.5% of the total world area. In so far as density of population is concerned, average density, according to 1981 census was 221 per sq. km, which varies from state to state, highest being in Chandigarh (3,948), next is Kerala (654). Contrasted to these in Sikkim, it is 44 and in Arunachal Pradesh only 7.

We add to our population more than 13 million people every year. Although it took thousands of years until 2011 for our population to reach 1200 million, at the present rate of growth our population will double itself within the next 20 years.

The importance which the Union Government has attached to birth control is evident from the fact that crores of rupees is set apart for family planning each year.

Also read: Essay on Population Explosion in India

The most important reason for the contemporary population explosions round the world is tremendous technological changes and spectacular control of disease by science and medicine. In developing countries there is a decrease in the death rate while there is no decrease in birth rate leading to population explosion. In the advanced nations of the world there is a rapid rise in the standard of living. When there is a rise in the standard of living, large number of children ceases to become an economic liability, instead they become an economic asset. In the agricultural societies of advanced countries a large number of children and wives also constitute an added economic asset.

According to 1971 census, the total population went up from 439 million in 1961 to 547.3 million, while the total workers decreased from 188.5 million in 1961 to 183.6 million in 1971 resulting in the steep increase in the unproductive consumers to the enormous figure of 363.7 million in contrast to 250 million in 1961. According to 2011 census, the total population of India went up over 1200 million. Over 18 million people count were increased since 2001.

One of the major needs of the developing countries like India is additional investment on highways, rail road’s, communication systems and so forth. A control over population is essential so that there are fewer dependents per wage-earner, who may then be motivated to save a large proportion of his total income. This is the usual method adopted in Soviet Union and other socialist nations.

Coale and Hoover have shown, how even 50% decline rate at which the population increases, might favourably affect the total amount of capital investment, the proportion of total capital which could be used for improving productivity rather than for providing for population increase. Only then could there be an increase in income per equivalent adult consumer. If there is no reduction in the size of the family, it is difficult, if not impossible for it, to save in order to increase capital formation. Coale points out high fertility can depress private savings in two ways:

By reducing volume of savings by individual families when such savings are an important component of the national total
By increasing proportion of national income that must occur to non-savers if standards of consumption play any part in determining the earnings of low-income families.

The present pattern of population growth in India is uneconomic and inimical to the economic health of the nation. Further, the size, density, rate of growth and age structure of the population are all unfavorable to economic progress. Our land is limited, capital is scarce and organization inefficient. Vast industrial and human resources in themselves cannot bring about economic progress. They can only sustain a primitive economy. And this is what actually is happening in India.

In the urban area again there is a surplus population, due to two reasons:

Excessive increase in population and
A steady migration from the rural areas of illiterate and unskilled people.

Further, there is a problem of unemployment among the educated people with the increase in educational facilities, there is a tremendous increase among the matriculates and the liberal arts graduates every year who want only the white- collared jobs; they are not trained to produce goods nor any service.

In certain segments of India, especially rural areas, bearing and rearing of children is looked upon as an investment. They offer a measure of security. During the illness and old age of the parents, it is expected that the children will begin to lighten their parents’ work in early childhood.

It is a fact that most many women with smaller children work less often outside the home. Moreover, with the relative prevalence of the joint or extended family system, the responsibility for bringing up children and the direct burden of looking after them should be assumed not to rest so exclusively on the individual parents. This should weaken the motivation for limiting the births, both because of the awareness that other members of the extended family can be relied on to share the burden and because any couples which exclusively limit their offspring may as a direct result be called on to make a larger contribution to the support of the children of other family members.

While parents and teachers play the most important role in moulding the attitudes and values of the children under their care, the society in general plays no small part in fashioning their mores and codes of behaviour.

In large metropolitan cities like Mumbai (formerly Bombay), Kolkata (formerly Calcutta), Delhi, Chennai (formerly Madras), Chandigarh, etc. the strong influence of western ways of behaviour, greater freedom between the sexes, and more frequent marriages between persons of different castes, creeds and countries have, to a great extent, broken clown the old barriers, traditions and customs, and have resulted in the exposure of young people to a wider range of behaviour than their parents and certainly their grandparents ever experienced. In such a setting, young people have to make choices at a much younger age not only with regard to their profession, their friends, their clothes and hair styles, but also with regard to their sexual behaviour.

Thus, the prime objective of any programme for family life education would be to enable young people to make personal and socially responsible choices about their sexual behaviour and to help them to achieve satisfying and responsible interpersonal relationships through the development of ethical standards.

It is essential for every young person to recognize that the sexuality with which he or she is endowed is a power which is to be used with a sense of responsibility not merely to serve as an instrument to achieve temporary pleasure, but as a means of achieving the deeper happiness which comes through the establishment of lasting relationships based on mutual lo e and understanding.