Rising population: Why we need to worry

As per the Census 2011, India added 180 million to its population in the decade following 2001 to reach a total population figure of 1.21 billion. At a decadal growth rate of 17 per cent, the country’s population is expected to surpass China’s 1.3 billion by 2024. At the same time, the Indian landmass is only a third of the Chinese landmass by area. Thus, the burgeoning Indian population is exerting tremendous pressure on the finite resources of the country.

There are pressures arising from a growing population. As agricultural land becomes scarce, food security gets threatened and fragmentation of land holdings make agriculture uneconomical. Second, given the underemployment in agriculture it becomes necessary to give a boost to manufacturing which can absorb the growing labour force. Yet, setting up factories requires land, which gets entangled in issues of land acquisition. Third, rural-urban migration puts a strain on urban infrastructure, leading to proliferation of slums, pollution and poor civic amenities. Fourth, as nearly 65 per cent of our population is below the age of 35, it opens up a possibility of reaping a demographic dividend through a productive and employed work force. However, the current workforce is plagued by poor quality of skill upgradation and threatened by automation. Fifth, the proportion of elderly to our total population is likely to rise to 8 per cent by 2030, putting pressure on our already-stretched social security systems. This raises issues of universality and sustainability. 

Given the concerns of a rising population, the Government has begun to view family planning as a social issue and launched Mission Parivar Vikas to reduce fertility rates in some of the most populous districts. It has also launched a skilling programme under the National Skill Development Corporation. There has also been a focus on agriculture to make it remunerative. The SP Mukherjee Rurban Mission (SPMRM) is an attempt at providing urban amenities in rural areas to stem rural-urban migration. The National Health Protection Scheme is taking the first step towards universal health coverage.

There is a further need to leverage technology to improve agricultural productivity and reduce leakages of social welfare schemes. Artificial intelligence can be made to complement workers rather than substitute them. Machine learning can improve mitigation and adaptation against climate change, improve waste management, and make cities more sustainable.

The skilling of human resources must be accompanied by an improvement in education with a greater focus on research and development. At the same time, cities need to expand vertically rather than horizontally which at the moment is using up scarce land resources.

The author is a research scholar at Delhi School of Economics. Views are personal.