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POPULATION: NOT AN ISSUE FOR INDIAN POLITICIANS

Talking to THE INDEPENDENT, famed British physicist Stephen Hawking had stated the other day “We are in danger of destroying ourselves by our greed and stupidity”, he was recollecting his interview of 2010 with a U.S television channel, while talking about the population. He is reported to have stated “Population had grown by half a billion in six years with no end in sight. At this rate it will be 11 billion by 2100. The resultant environmental pollution shall be the biggest threats to mankind globally. More than 80% of inhabitants of urban areas are exposed to unsafe levels of air pollution. People should be careful, mankind is in danger of destroying ourselves", he is reported to have stated. 

11th July, World Population Day came and went into national amnesia, as if it was another day in the calendar. Customary government advertisement in the news papers too was not there. Country’s leadership, both at states and centre lost their sense of proportion in not recognizing that the increasing population is an issue of serious concerns. The International Institute of Population Studies, in Mumbai had put outside their office in Deonar near Chembur, 1,333,441,253 as the population recorded for India on 11th July 2016. This represents an increase of close to 60 million rise, indicating some 50 lakhs average growth per month.

While it is true that there is a small reduction in the overall growth but an average 50 lakhs per month is still a huge growth challenging the resource availability and mobilization for the growing numbers. Thus, controlling this number is of paramount importance. Over 30 years ago, China adopted a policy of ONE CHILD, and in thirty years they could prevent the birth of some 400 million. Thirty years ago China was paying $25 per week, now due to reduction in excessive supply of working men & women, the salary per week has increased to $500/-. Thus it is very clear, that there will be better employment opportunities and therefore reduction in poverty levels, better availability of housing, less pressure on infrastructure and much less population levels.

Of course, the issue of population is multi dimensional and hence we have requested some of our readers to share their thoughts on the subject, which we have published as follows.

-Editor

High time to Revisit Population Development Strategies

Dr. K. Shivashankara Bhat

Understanding the demographic changes that are likely to unfold over the coming years as well as the challenges that they present for achieving sustainable development is important to have sustainable framework on development strategies.  The world population reached 7.3 billion as of mid-2015.  China (1.4 billion) and India (1.3 billion) remain largest countries of the world, both with more than 1 billion people representing 19 and 18 percent of the world’s population, respectively.  In India 26 million babies –the population of Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland combined-are  born every year.  350 million people were added to India’s population in a decade, compared to China’s rise by 210 million in the same period.

This dramatic growth has been driven largely by increasing number of people surviving to reproductive age, increasing urbanization and accelerating migration.  By 2050 about 66% of the world population will be living in cities.  Average global life spans have risen from 64.8 in the yearly 1990s to 70 years today.  India, the second largest populated country in the world, supports 18% of world’s population with meager 2.42% of world’s land area and 1.5% of world’s income.  According to Census Research 2011, India’s population was 121 crore and it grow at 1.8% per annum.

In 2050 India’s population is projected to be 1.69 billion – China’s will be 1.31 billion.  India added 1.81 billion people to the world between 2001 and 2011, slightly less than entire population of Brazil.  But 56% of India’s population lives on less than us $ 2 per day.  India ranks at the bottom of the pyramid in per capita level consumption indicators.

Much of India’s population increase had occurred among the poorest socio-economic percentile.  Relatively socio-economically advanced Indian states had a fertility rate of less than 2.1 in 2009 less than the level needed to maintain a stable population.  But in poor states like Bihar fertility rates were nearer to 4.0.  In India, fall in death rate is greater than fall in birth rate leading to population explosion and lower standard of living.   In advanced countries, there is rise in standard of living, children ceases to become an economic liability, instead they become an economic asset.

The present pattern of population growth in India is uneconomic and inimical to the economic health of the nation.  Further, the size, density and rate of growth are all unfavorable to economic progress.  These megatrends have far reaching implications.  They affect economic development, capital formation, employment, income distribution, poverty, maintenance investment and social protections and development very badly.  They also affect efforts to ensure universal access to healthcare, education, housing, sanitation, water, food and energy.

What have we achieved in the population front since independence?  Life expectancy at birth in India has gone up from 32 years in 1947 to 68 years in 2015, as against 78 years in U.S.A and 77 years in China.  The skewed facts reflect the distressing truth that life expectancy at birth, a basic measurement of health inequality varies from 77 years in rural Kerala to 64 years in rural Assam over the 2009-13 period.  Similarly, the child mortality rate among mothers with no education is more than 10 times the child mortality among mothers with 12 years of schooling.  Besides this, do we know and address issues like:

• What is the life expectancy gap between a high caste woman in a well-off family in urban Kerala and a woman from a deprived caste and poor family in U.P?

• What are the causes of death among the urban poor in India?

• Does the burden of non-communicable disease fall disproportionately across different socio-economic groups in India?  Unfortunately, after 69 years of independence, these basic questions remain unanswered and unattended.

Healthy growth presupposes the existence of healthy and educated population consisting of both men and women.  But due to population explosion we find several kinds of inequalities between male and female population.  This is a true case of gender bias.  Parameters of gender bias like low sex ratio, health profile, education profile, work participation rate etc. reflect wide range of discrimination between male and female population in India.  Sex ratio in India is very low.  It was 940 in 2011 as against 1029 in USA, 1140 in Russia and 1041 in Japan.  Infant mortality rate of girls is much higher than the death rate among the boys.  It is 72 and 25 per thousand respectively.  Gross enrolment ratio of girls at the primary level is 85% and at middle level it is 49% whereas among boys this ratio is 96% and 68% respectively.  The work participation rate is just 12% in urban areas and 25% in rural areas which for the men it is 55% both in urban and rural areas.

Hunger remains number one problem in India and it persists.  The prevalence of under weight children in India is among the highest in the world.  As many as 44% of population of underweight children live in India as against 3% in China and 9% in South Africa.  As much as 48% of children under the age of five in the country are stunted.  Malnutrition is higher among kids whose mothers are uneducated.    According to Global Hunger Index, India was ranked 63rd out of 76 countries in 2013.  India’s ‘hunger belt’ covers both rural underdeveloped areas and heavily populated urban ones.  The child sex ratio has slipped from 945 to 927 girls for every 1000 boys.  33% of our population has no access to sanitation.  There is poor healthcare system in India.

The runway population growth in India has created vast ranks of restless young men. Their frustrated ambitions resulted in mounting illegal and unethical practices in the society.  As India grapples with what seems like a constant barrage of shocking acts of violence against women, one should raise a question: why is this happening?  The answer is India’s gender ratio, distorted by the practice of sex selection in favour of baby boys.  Gender imbalance caused by marriageable women, results in higher rates of crime, including rape, committed by young unmarried men and also married men.  Certainly violent crime against women increases as deficit of women increases.  Violent crime in India rose nearly 29% from 2007 to 2011, while kidnapping of women increased 74% in that period.  The annoying fact is that, of all the people arrested for rape crimes, almost 60% were men between the ages of 18 and 30 years and nearly 30% were men between the ages of 30 and 45 years.  It is time to create an atmosphere where young people have to make choices at a much younger age not only with regard to their profession, their friends, their clothes and hairstyles, but more importantly with regard to their sexual behavior.

As population and consumption grow, threats such as climate changes, decreasing biodiversity    emerge.  Concrete jungle is mounting up.  Crucial local environmental problems – including shortage of safe drinking water, arable land, mounting wastes of all kinds, air, water and noise pollution affect health and threaten the expansion of food production required to feed more mouths.

Countries would be better off with lower population growth and birth rates.  This is exemplified by the east Asian ‘tiger’ economies, including South Korea, and Taiwan, that in recent decades, have seen rapid increase in per capita incomes as birth rates declined.

Where will we be?  It is a matter of contentment that the theme of World Population Day 2016 being ‘Investing in Teenage Girls’, huge  investment should be made to mitigate gender bias and  to increase human capital formation by increasing the knowledge, the skills and the capabilities of all sections of the people in the country.  It should include adequate amount of investment on health, education and social sectors.

Think of population growth as a speeding train. When driver applies the brake, train doesn't stop immediately.  Momentum moves it forward to considerable distance before it finally coming to a halt.  It is high time to revisit population development strategies in India.  The point of population stabilization is to reduce misery.  If we do not halt rapid population growth with justice and compassion, it will be done by the nature brutally.

( Author is a Professor and HOD of Economics, Govinda Dasa College, Surathkal)

Population: An urgent policy needed

Agumbe S Nataraj

India's population has reached a breaking point. It is now 125 crores and may surpass the Chinese population by 2020.

The limitless burgeoning of population growth has affected the lives of Indians in every aspects. It has affected them in every sphere of lives as shown in the figures provided below.

1) In the health and welfare sector, India now records the planet's highest number of HIV-positive cases. It has surpassed South Africa as having the world's highest number of HIV-positive cases, there are currently 5.7 million reported cases in India. Sex workers, truck drivers and intravenous drug users also fall into the high risk category. There are believed to be at least 12000 sex workers in MUMBAI alone who are suffering from this disease.

2) India is declared as the capital of Diabetes kingdom. People having diabetes have reached 75 million and is steadily raising.

3) Indian farmers are always in debt. With innumerable dams built across various rivers, agriculture is still a gamble in monsoon in India It is reported that India's agricultural output is lost due to soil degradation from over farming, rising soil salinity, loss of tree covers and poor irrigation .The heart rending human tragedy of the farmers suicide occurs on a daily basis here due to the crushing level of debt and poverty.

The list is endless .The problems faced by the people are many.

But lurking behind all these various problems faced by the Indians is the basic Malthusian truth: There are too many people in India for the country to support at its current level of development.

To eradicate poverty, to give schooling, health care, housing, above all jobs for everyone is a herculean task for any elected government to carry out successfully.

Being highly selfish, without caring for others, adopting unethical method of earning quickly through corruption, Indian's have stooped to the lowest level in morality. Perhaps we are the only people in the whole world to worship the Goddess Lakshmi, the Goddess of wealth without earning it.

Dr. Ambedkar rightly said that unless Indians worshiped these three Gods: Knowledge, Morality and Self respect, there is no hope for Indians to overcome their present state of helplessness, acute poverty and moral decency.

(Author is a retired banking profesional and have over half a dozen books in English & Kannada to his credit.)

Population Policy

Dr. G. R. Krishna

India will be celebrating her 69th birthday of her independence in the coming August 2016. By the August 2017 she will be aging to her 70 after the Independence.

Seven decades are good enough to assess and estimate a nation's progress and the direction in which she travels.

Of course, we could boast of many achievements after independence : Our technology development, our infrastructure development, our defence capability and our revolution in information technology.

Our present govt. feels that 7 point plus growth rate is a good index of growing economy. However this is drastically nullified not only by inflation and price-rise but also immensely by the unchecked spiralling population. As a result we witness a strange and bewildering social and economic scenario in the country.

The Indian economy is growing on one hand, but the disparities in the income levels is so widening between the rich and the poor. This is not a healthy sign for the stability and unity of the country. The precise reason for this contradiction is the exploding population, and the lack of uniform population policy for the country.

The argument that India with her huge population could be a back-office for the whole world, is untenable if not an illusion. Uncontrolled, and unplanned population who are illiterate, unskilled and unhealthy cannot be the back-office but only a back-ward office to the world.

For the problem of exploding population, only solution is the adoption or a national policy of one child norm (for a family) and strict implementation of it. Of course, one child-uniform population policy for all the castes, religions and regions in the country is the only practical solution. 

If China could succeed in the implementation one child norm, there is no reason why India should hesitate / fear to do so.

 Unfortunately, the issue of population is shrouded in emotions in our country. Heads of some of the religions are misquoting and misinterpreting the scriptures to discourage/ de- motivate family planning, family control and family regulation.

Of course, in a democratic country like India, coercion is not the only way for implementing the population policy. Persuasion, convincing, motivating, training and incentivising are equally effective methods. For this, the central govt. at Delhi and state govts shall take a firm stand for the adoptive and implementation of the uniform population policy. We must have a political will and courage for doing this particular plan of action in view of the need for sustainable development and the welfare of the future generation.   

One child families must be given high incentives like subsidy and freebies in the ration, LPG Supply, toilet construction, employment and free marriage allowances / providing expenses for single child promising families. More than this, single child in a family must get total subsidy for free education throughout the school and college and priority in employment.

Two children families may get subsidies, freebies, discounts and welfare measures in a reduced measure when compared to one child families.

Families with more than two children shall be outside the eligibility criteria for all govt welfare measures and entitlements. For well to do families or more than two children higher taxation slabs must be adopted and implemented.

The country of India’s size with all her contradictions, castes and religions may need sometime to understand the immense importance and urgency of the one child family norm. However this is the only way and only measure to make India rich and powerful in the today's world scenario. Rich  here does not mean vulgarly rich for the few and privileged but a comfortable and decent life for vast masses of people,  One child norm for the family is the only modus operating to ensure progress, stability and unity in our country.

Now, our priority is not only 'Swatch Bharath' but also 'Kousalya Bharath' (Skilled India) and 'Kalyan Bharath' (prosperous India).

(Author is a well known Commnetator on Social and Political affairs)

Demographic Imbalance in Population - A missing link to be addressed:                                                  

                                                                                                        K. Laxminarayana

Added to the existing socio-economic ills of society, the huge "Population explosion" in India is a root cause for much of our problems. The limited resources of the land-mass and the ever growing consumers make it difficult to have India at balance in its consumption and production and availability of resources. Hence we need to now rely on the awareness initiatives, family planning and basic education to all.  It’s time that we need to relook into the implementation of the policy "One family at the max 2 child policy". The policy can be executed by controlling the subsidies being provided to a family; if number of children in the family exceeds 2, then all the subsidies provided to them would automatically be removed and the person will no longer be entitled to any subsidies.
A national population policy that will apply uniformly to all citizens and redress the "problem of demographic imbalance" and preparation of a national citizens' register is the need of the hour.
It is to be noted that although India was among the first in the world to announce a population plan way back in 1952, it was only in 2000 that a commission was set up which went on to draft a "comprehensive" population policy. Measures taken to control the population of the country have yielded result, but the Census has brought to the fore so many shocking revelations. We need to see how much population we can feed in the coming years with quality life.
A new report shows that a considerable portion of India’s population has aged in the last sixty years, and experts are saying that we must find ways of gainfully engaging senior citizens in the economy. The country’s demographic dividend is such that 356 million of population is between ages of 10 and 24, the highest of its kind in the world. This can chauffeur the Indian economy to desired goalposts, provided the people in this age bracket are given adequate skills. The fact that India will become the world’s youngest country by 2020, with a median age of 29, has prompted the Government to set up the Ministry of Skill Development, which has become the nodal Ministry of flagship initiatives like Skill India. Launched in July 2015, it is aimed at training 500 million youth for various employment opportunities by 2020. This is an extremely ambitions goal post.
However, data provided in a recent report by the Government shows that even though India may have the “demographic gift” of a young population, the bigger picture is more complicated when one takes the rise of the country’s elderly population into account. The report titled Elderly in India: Profile and Programmes 2016 was put together by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) under the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MOSPI). A dip into the data shows that the share of the elderly in the population as a whole has risen from 5.5% in 1951 to 8.6% in 2011. Between 2001 and 2011, there has been a 35.5% increase in that bracket (from 7.66 crores to 10.38 crores). By 2021, this figure is likely to jump higher, according to the 2014 State of Elderly in India report released by Help Age India.
According to a UN study of last year, India will surpass China as the world’s most populous country in 2022. This should not make us think that a population larger than China will invariably be an advantage for us. Instead we should see how much of it will become non-productive by that year. Considering that there has been no plan in place to gainfully utilise the senior citizens who are in good health, it will not be that easy for India even if it wins the tag of the world’s most populous country from China. Therefore the first corrective measure should be to recognise the problem. Secondly, we should find ways to make this large chunk of the population economically viable. This section of people can certainly bring more dynamism to the Indian labour market, a factor which is often overlooked even by economists. Hence we should concentrate on training the youth but should also impart skills to the retired so that they do contribute to the economic growth instead of becoming a burden for the country in the future.
The indications are that India is indeed in the early stages of a major economic inflection point, driven by a strong push for structural reforms by the Government.  Among emerging markets, India has a unique combination of attractive long-term assets.  The most obvious asset is its large, young and growing population.  The country also has plentiful natural resources which to date have not been adequately exploited.  No other country in the world has this unique combination of assets on this scale.  Clearly, the value of these assets is a function of how well India demonstrates that it can utilise them.  A functioning democracy, a young and plentiful labour pool and a surfeit of resources, if not utilised, can also be a combination for unrest and a harsh political backlash.
The recent signs however are positive with a sharp increase in foreign investment, a decline in inflation and an increase in GDP growth.  While some of this improved performance can be attributed to external or cyclical factors such as the sharp fall in global oil and commodity prices, considering the overall global slowdown which is now underway and the slowdown in all the other “BRIC” countries, India’s economic resurgence stands out as a bright spot.  The reform momentum has also resulted in greater optimism about the recovery (with the sovereign credit outlook also being upgraded).  The most noticeable change of course has been the sentiment, evidenced in the stock market index which has increased over 30% in 2014, propelled by strong foreign investment inflows.  If the Indian economy can achieve the near-term market expectations outlined above over the next one year, then it will clearly be on the path of a rapid and robust recovery, however achieving them will require both adept economic policy management and a continuation of the government’s reform agenda.
Finally, from an intellectual standpoint, the reforms required to help accelerate India’s growth and address many of its long-standing human development issues are well-known. Many of these policy challenges have been attempted to be addressed such as labour laws, governance, energy policy and privatisation.  Additional focus will be required to see many of these reforms through their conclusion, along with initiation of other key reforms such as liberalising education.
While the reform and policy agenda is clearly aimed at setting India’s growth first back to the 8% range and very soon thereafter to double digits which would allow it to achieve per capita income levels which are 1.7 X higher than the current baseline estimate by 2025 and 3.7 X higher by 2040, however doing so will require the desire to make “India Wide Open” concurrently working in many areas – including its people (Population explosion), its resources, its government and its entrepreneurs.

(Author is Group General Manager, MRPL, Mangalore)