The Hindu Business Line : The population time bomb is ticking

INDIA's current population is 102.8 crore, to which are added 44,640 babies born every day or 1.6 crore (equal to the entire population of Australia) every year.

Given the birth rate of 31 per thousand people (as against 20 in China), India will be the most populous country in the world in 2025, teeming with 160 crore people (compared to 155 crore of China).

Only four countries in the world (Brazil, China, Indonesia and the US) have more population than Uttar Pradesh (at 14 crore) which is just one of the States in India.

If there is one problem that poses the gravest danger for the stability and progress of India and the well-being of its people, it is the mind-boggling numbers whose compelling needs in terms of food, drinking water, health, education, employment and housing are still at subsistence levels.

There are today more people below the poverty line than the entire population of India at the time of Independence.

The numbers are rapidly multiplying and the ticking time bomb threatens to explode in India's face before long.

And yet, a sense of complacency seems to have taken hold of governments at the Centre and in the States, with little evidence of the kind of sustained and vigorous drive to achieve zero population growth within a stated period.

For instance, nowhere in the whole of the Budget speech of the Finance Minister, Mr P. Chidambaram, is there even a fleeting reference to the population explosion that is taking place in India and the policies and measures the Government has in mind for mitigating its catastrophic impact.

It finds no mention in the six thrust areas he has set before himself as the goals of his Budget, nor is it among the priorities of the National Common Minimum Programme.

Considering the terrifying prospect confronting the country if population is not controlled, one would have expected the Finance Minister to devote at least a few paragraphs in his speech to the strategy he proposes to follow.

The minimum that is expected of the new UPA Government is for it to bring out a White Paper on this brewing crisis, spelling out its approach and lines of attack, keeping in mind the recommendations of the Dr M. S. Swaminathan Commission (1994) and the National Population Commission (2001).

It can first be considered by the Inter-State Council, followed by a special debate on it in Parliament so as to evolve a national consensus for the determined enforcement of appropriate legislative and other measures.