India Prepares to slow down its Population Growth
India faces a
grim reality, a rapidly rising population. If family planning efforts are not
stepped up with missionary zeal, the present population of 1.3 billion could double
in 22 years. This means by the year 2026, there could be 2.6 billion Indians;
possibly more Indians than even the Chinese, who now count as the largest
single ethnic entity on the globe. Could it spell a near catastrophe? It is not
just a question of feeding more than two and a half billion people in an
over-crowded country. Even to slake their thirst with diminishing water
resources would be far from easy, assuming that there would be a manifold
increase in desalination of seawater. Would it endanger more and more lives as
the years go by? That conclusion might well be inescapable. The entire
resources for sheer survival of Indians growing in numbers would be under grave
pressure. Housing, food, water, medical aid, roads, railways and all conceivable
life-supporting systems would be much scarcer than now, no matter how rapid the
development process. Tensions of all sorts would increase as man would fight
man for his own rights. Would India
become one great slum? Would rivers, canals, lakes, ponds and all sorts of
water bodies including groundwater as well as the air be polluted beyond
remedy? Would India
warm up much faster than the rest of the world? Would summers be elongated and
winters shortened?
Why is the population rising
so fast? The simple answer is that it has been rising at a breakneck speed
throughout the 20th century and even in the new millennium in large parts of
the world, especially Asia and Africa as well as the Americas. Only in Europe
the people are ageing faster than elsewhere in the world. Traditionally, people
all over the world have favoured large families as even the survival of the
fittest was not guaranteed and death rates were high. So survivors were needed
to support the rest of the family. Old age required young sons because
daughters were generally married off and went to make up other families. The
gender prejudice against girls continues as daughters are generally given away
in marriage at much or great expense and sons carry forward the name of the
family. While the educated or wealthy families may welcome daughters equally as
they do the sons, the less affluent and the poor or traditionalists favour
sons. The fastest increase in population has been noticed in the northern and
eastern States of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal and Jharkhand.
July
11 was Population Day around the world and the global population is already 6
billion and rising all the time. India hopes to bring down its birth
rate to 21 per thousand and death rate to nine per thousand. If this is
achieved by governmental and people’s own efforts by adopting family planning, India’s
population is expected to stabilize by the year 2050. The Government of India
is concerned over the unprecedented rise in the country’s population and as an
emergency measure, the Health Ministry has prepared a list of 150 high
fertility districts in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Madhya
Pradesh, Chhatisgarh and Rajasthan. The Centre launched a focused programme on
July 11 on family planning projects. This year’s Union Budget has also
projected the 150 most backward districts all over India where steps would be taken to
provide adequate health services as an emergency measure. It is expected that
this two-pronged strategy would give a fillip to the family planning drive. The
Health Ministry has requested the aforesaid States to actively involve its
officials and health workers in promoting the family welfare programme to
ensure its success. The Health and Family Welfare Minister, Dr. A. Ramdoss is
personally overseeing the programme. While health is a State subject and it is
the States’ responsibility to promote family planning, it is appreciated that
the Centre and non-governmental organizations have a key role in it. The Common
Minimum Programme which lays emphasis on better health care of the people is
expected to be invoked to promote family planning as a key component of better
health of the people, especially women and children. The Ministry of Women and
Child Welfare and similar departments in the States could be strengthened to
give a push to family planning.
The States of Punjab, Haryana,
Himachal and Gujarat have been criticized by
international agencies for their dismal ratios of females to males. Nationwide,
the ratio is 960 females to 1,000 males. In these four States, the ratio fell
to less than 800 girls for 1,000 boys in 2001. In Punjab,
the decline was in 10 of its 17 districts. But in Haryana all districts
recorded fewer than 850 births of girls for 1,000 boys. Female infanticide
continues in the face of grim poverty in the severely drought-prone or
flood-prone areas. India’s
per capita income has been calculated at Rs 18,400 per annum. But in effect the
poorest of the poor do not even earn Rs 1,000 per month per family.
There is a view that the
burgeoning population of India
is a vast human resource which can be used for development. It is suggested
that India should learn from
China
where the zero growth has disturbed gender equation in the light of the one
child norm. But the counterpoint is that India has not adopted the one child
per family norm, nor any coercive measures to curb population. India
is a democracy and the stress in this country is promotion of family welfare
through persuasion and incentives and disincentives rather than the use of force
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