Wake-up call on people count

The first set of results of the Census 2011 has some encouraging news relating to the slower decadal growth rate of population and the rising literacy levels. However, the same is accompanied by negatives like a chilling picture of a sharp drop in the child sex ratio.

It is a matter of national shame that this ratio, which has been declining since 1961, has witnessed the sharpest fall from 927.31girls for every 1,000 boys in 2001 to 914.23 in 2011, the worst since Independence. True, the overall sex ratio has shown an improvement in 2011 at 940 females for every 1,000 males, up from 933 in 2001. But this appears to be largely due to higher life expectancy among women.

While the decadal growth in population has declined to 17.6 per cent in 2011 from 21.54 per cent in 2001, it is still higher than the earlier projection of 16 per cent by the office of the Census Commissioner. Similarly, the improved literacy rate from 64.83 per cent in 2001 to 74.04 per cent is short of the target set by the Planning Commission to raise it to 85 per cent by 2011-12.

THE BROADER PICTURE

In fact, the broader picture still remains grim with population increasing by a little over 181 million during the decade 2001-2011 to 121 billion. This means, we have added one Brazil to our population within a decade. Now the country's headcount is almost equal to the combined population of the US, Indonesia, Brazil, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Japan put together.

Even though India's population is now not growing as fast as it had been over the last 60 years, it has more than tripled over this period and is still growing, albeit at a somewhat decelerating pace.

Already the environmental crisis facing the country is alarming, largely because of the huge and growing population pressure.

India now accounts for 17.5 per cent of world population, but has only 2.4 per cent of world surface area of 135 million sq. km. In contrast, the United States accounts for 7.2 per cent of the surface area with only 4.5 per cent of the world population to support.

Population density

The population density has increased by almost 57 people per sq. km. over the past decade from 325 in 2001 to 382 in 2011. Delhi tops the list of States and Union Territories in population density with 11,297 people per sq. km. The next is Chandigarh with 9,252.

Among the States, the top slot goes to Bihar with 1,102 people per sq. km. West Bengal is the only other State having a population density in excess of 1,000 per sq. km.

Uttar Pradesh has a population density of 828. Uttar Pradesh (199.5 million) is the most populous State followed by Maharashtra with 112 million, Bihar (103.8 million), West Bengal (91.3 million) and Andhra Pradesh (84.7 million). The serious problems facing the country such as the growing inequalities, large-scale unemployment and underemployment, persistence of poverty that has defied a solution despite over half a century of battle against it, continuing environmental degradation, growing menace of water pollution and water scarcity and the growing threat to nation's food security, could largely be attributed to the population explosion over the past six decades.

The latest Census data is a wake-up call to the country's planners and policymakers to stop taking comfort from little gains in literacy rates, lower mortality rates and so on. Much greater efforts would be needed to move towards population stabilisation at a much faster pace.

Going by the Census figures, the total number of children in the age group 0-6 is 158.8 million, only 5 million less since 2001. This huge sea of growing child population has to be provided with education facilities – primary, secondary, technical and higher education. Unfortunately, these facilities remain woefully inadequate today.

While the right to education is a good start, the status of elementary education in the country continues to remain dismal and is riddled with problems such as an acute shortage of class rooms and teachers, particularly in the rural country side. Similarly, the state of secondary and higher education is also not much better.

The public health facilities are in a bad shape, the proportion of malnourished children was as high as 46 per cent in 2005-06 as compared with 47 per cent in 1998-99.

Even with regard to safe drinking water and sanitation, the situation remains highly disappointing. The so-called ‘demographic dividend' will remain a distant dream, unless the country succeeds in providing proper health and education facilities to the prevailing sea of child population. At the same time, the growing labour force will have to be provided with adequate employment opportunities.

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