The Hindu Business Line : Damp squib

ON all accounts, the meeting of the Population Commission held on July 23, with the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh presiding, can only be termed a damp squib. This is one issue that will make all the difference between India making it to the big league and being torn by social upheavals setting at naught all its efforts to eliminate poverty and protect environment.

The havoc swelling numbers can cause can be brought home by a simple factoid: By 2020, the year the President, Mr A. P. J. Abdul Kalam has never tired of designating as the year when India should come into its own as a full-fledged developed nation, there will be, according to a conservative estimate, 40 crore unemployed, with the organised sector being able to provide no more than 6 crore new jobs.

Where will the rest of the unemployed be accommodated? And if they are not taken care of, will it be any wonder if they take to violence to draw attention to their desperate plight? Likewise, there have been plenty of equally depressing scenarios in regard to per capita availability of land, water and other natural resources — all resulting from exploding population.

Contrast this frightening prospect with the lacklustre performance on this front in many of the States, especially the Hindi belt, and the low gear in which the Ministry of Family Welfare seems to be functioning.

The Population Commission itself was meeting after an unconscionably long interval of five years. And that too only to find fault with Andhra Pradesh for its vigorous efforts and to dilute the two-child norm. Can there be a more stunning indication of the prevalent "couldn't-care-less" attitude? It was left to Ms Sonia Gandhi to impress on the Commission the need to meet frequently to give a push to the implementation of the existing programmes.

The real problem is that the government is shy of facing up to the fact that it is no more a mere question of "stabilising" population but one of containing, controlling and reversing the present alarming trends concerning crude birth rate.

This cannot be done by sweet talk alone, without being buttressed by a scheme of incentives-cum-disincentives. The sooner the Population Commission looks at its mission with a sense of realism and urgency, the better.

B. S. Raghavan

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