Is population time bomb ticking?

IN PERSPECTIVE

The lifting of lockdown in May has resulted in a sudden surge in Covid-19 cases in the country. At more than 8.50 lakh infections, India now has the third-highest number of confirmed cases in the world after the US and Brazil. This was attributed to many reasons - that people did not maintain social distance, followed poor hygiene, that they did not wear masks etc.

Some experts have even said that the poor hygiene coupled with high density of population have been responsible for the spike in cases. Then, is the burgeoning population the cause for many of our problems? Ironically, the World Population Day was observed on July 11 to raise awareness about global population issues.

This year, the theme of the World Population Day was to raise awareness about safeguarding sexual and reproductive health needs and vulnerabilities of women and girls during the Covid-19 pandemic. The World Population Day assumes importance because it highlights the problems of increasing population and raises awareness about the effects of over-population on the environment and planet.

A recent United Nations Fund For Population Activities research highlighted that if the lockdown continues for six more months with major disruptions to health services, then 47 million women in low and middle-income countries may not be able to access modern contraceptives resulting in seven million unintended pregnancies.

World’s population has been growing rapidly in the last couple of decades. Incidentally, it took thousands of years for the world population to grow to one billion and it took only 200 years or so, to grow sevenfold.

In 2011, the global population breached the seven billion mark, and today, it stands at about 7.7 billion and is expected to grow to around 8.5 billion in 2030 and 9.7 billion in 2050.

This dramatic growth in population is largely due to increasing numbers of people surviving reproductive age. This has been accompanied by major changes in fertility rates, and increasing urbanisation and accelerating migration. These trends will have far-reaching implications for our future generations.

The recent past has seen huge changes in fertility rates and life expectancy. Sample this - in the early 1970s, women had on average 4.5 children; by 2015, total fertility for the world had dropped to 2.5 children per woman. The average global life expectancy has risen, from 64.6 years in the early 1990s to 72.6 years in 2019.

India, with 137 crore people, is the second-most populous country in the world, which means 18% of world’s population lives here.

A United Nations report has said that India is set to overtake China as the world’s most populous country by 2027. While the population density of the world is 20 persons per sq km, India has a population density of 419 persons per sq km. Our population density is less when compared geographically with its more developed Asian counterparts like Singapore (8,000 per sq km), Hong Kong (7,000 per sq km) or South Korea (528 per sq km). What is worrying is the increase in India’s population density over different periods - from 120 persons in 1950 to 419 in 2020 – an increase of nearly 350%.

Dharavi in Mumbai which was a major Covid hotspot, has a density of over two lakh people per sq km! There is a higher incidence of Covid cases in places having a higher density of population. As population increases across major metros, municipal corporations in cities and towns have a torrid time dealing with sanitation, air and noise pollution and large quantities of waste.

Population policy

It is against this backdrop that the country needs to have a clear population policy and policy-makers are realising the implications of population explosion only of late. Senior Congress leader Abhishek Singhvi tabled a private member’s bill in Rajya Sabha in March that called for enforcement of a two-child norm through incentives and disincentives.

It needed President’s permission for its introduction in Rajya Sabha as the Population Control Bill, 2020 had monetary implications. President Ram Nath Kovind has since granted the permission. The Bill contains disincentives for those who do not comply with the norms. These include barring them from contesting elections, getting promotions in government services, receiving government subsidy or applying for Group A jobs.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had, in his Independence Day speech last year, gave a clarion call to the Central and state governments to implement policies to control the population growth rate. He also urged couples to have smaller families and praised those who had embraced smaller family norms stating that having fewer children is “an act of patriotism.”

India was the first developing country to introduce a national family planning programme in 1951 to control the population growth rate. However, the Union government’s ruthless decision to forcibly sterilise nearly 80 lakh people during Emergency came under fire and so subsequent governments turned a blind eye to family planning and population control.

The National Population Policy, 2000 aims at stabilising the population by 2045.The way forward is to nudge people to have small families. The primary objective should focus on educating women and encouraging them to adopt family planning, which is central to their empowerment and sustainable development. The population time bomb is ticking and policymakers have to take urgent measures before it is too late.