Population is a number of all the organisms of the same group or species who live in a particular geographical area it may be a city, district, state or a country. The total geographical area of India is 3,287,240 sq.km. Area wise, India is the seventh largest country in the world. Population wise, India is the second largest country in the world.
Increase in population can cause strain on the resources because of rising demands, and this strain will have a negative effect on the environment. In our country we have a limited number of resources for limited number of citizens like hospitals, trains, buses, schools, universities, jobs etc. If the population increases and goes out of control then there will be shortfall of resources. We had seen in time of second wave of the pandemic that all hospitals are full, people were not getting beds, shortage of oxygen had also taken lives of many people. Overpopulation is disastrous, because rise in population is resulting in depletion of the natural resources, poverty, unemployment, environmental degradation, scarcity of services like health, transport, education etc.
Life expectancy of every individual is also increasing because of good health care facilities and availability of good and affordable medication. People are living quality of life. This is the reason survival rate is increasing day by day and leading to increased population. To maintain sustainable population, death rate and birth rates should balance with each other. Some people give example of China. But we have to understand, area wise China is 3 times bigger than India. That’s why I think, India is more overpopulated than China. Education, awareness, policies and programs will not motivate the people to maintain small family. We previously had ran campaigns like “Hum Do Hamare Do”. But it was unsuccessful. That’s Why, strict laws should be implemented as soon as possible to limit the rising population of India.
China has witnessed a steady drop-in birth rate. Chinese demographers said that India will become the world’s most populous country much earlier than the United Nations’ projection of 2027. As per United Nations report, India is expected to add more or less 273 million people to its total population from now to 2050.
Indian Perspective
India is overpopulated country. It has world’s second largest population. We can feel and observe this everywhere around us. In India buses, trains are overcrowded carrying people more than their capacity, vegetable markets are overcrowded, unemployment and poverty is increasing. Controlling population is the only solution for these problems. Now the time has gone for awareness generation and making campaigns like “Hum do Hamare Do”. Time has come to implement strict law and strict penalty. Illiteracy and lack of awareness is one of the main reasons in India which is leading to increasing population. People say education is a reason for overpopulation but I don’t think so. I have been to Kerala once; it has India’s one of the highest literacy rate of 96.2%. But surprisingly there I have seen such family where a person has 3 wives and 8 children. So, education is obviously a reason but not the only one. Obviously, our health care facilities are improving day by day. That is also contributing to increased life expectancy. So, a balance between birth and death rate is important. If people are giving birth to more people than the number of deaths, then obviously it will increase population. Government is spending a huge amount of money in health care schemes and different other schemes for poverty eradication and income generation, which is also contributing to increased life expectancy. Factors like illiteracy and lack of family planning is also a problem specially in rural areas. They do not think what the child will do after he/she grows up.
Promotion of contraceptive methods for birth control is necessary. Government should provide contraceptive pill, condoms etc. But changing the mindset is very important and that only can be done by strict laws and awareness. Recently lawyer and a Bhartiya Janta Party member, Ashwini Upadhyay had filed petition for population control. He has asked for a law which will deny government jobs, subsidies, and certain rights to people who have more than two children. The rights which will be denied as per the petition are right to vote and property. Several states have population control law including Assam, Maharashtra, Odisha, Rajasthan, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. Recently Uttar Pradesh have drafted a bill to control population. It proposes incentives for those following two-child policy. The bill also proposes to bar the violators of the policy from contesting local body elections and applying for government jobs. State government employees who will follow the two-child policy, will get two additional incentives and three per cent increase in Employee Provident Fund.
Today rising population is a big challenge. If government will not tackle this properly then it will become a big problem for future generation.
