Population Explosion: A Stark Reality in India
Population explosion in India is a reality today and it is alarming. Today, India’s population stands at 1.35 + billions and 33 children are born every minute in the country.
By Denhang Bosai, Dy Director, IPR, Arunachal Pradesh
As the nation was blissfully and deeply engrossed in euphoric celebration of scrapping of Article 370 and 35 (A) from Jammu and Kashmir, many fail to listen to the very relevant and important issue of ‘population explosion’ raised by PM Modi in his Independence speech this year.
The Prime Minister very rightly opined that maintaining a small family can also be patriotism. He said that patriotic Indians should volunteer to have small families by having less children even though there was no law for it. How true indeed, because this is in the interest of the nation.
Population explosion in India is a reality today and it is alarming. Today, India’s population stands at 1.35 + billions and 33 children are born every minute in the country. At this rate of producing children, India will overtake China by 2024.
Ironically, India has only 4% cultivable land and only 2% potable water. These are serious stats and if the population continues to explode at this rate then we are in for a very serious problems ahead. The problem will truly be catasthropic having far-reaching devastating consequences. It will be too late for us even to repent.
All Indians irrespective of race, region, religion, language, ethnicities, creed and caste must realize the perils the country is destined to face the impending dangers of over population and volunteer to have limited children, say one child or two children and not more than that for their own good and good of the nation.
If the people continue to be defiant and are not bothered by the huge problems the country is facing today due to uncontrolled population growth then GOI may explore possibilities to enact a uniform law in consultation with all the people to check population explosion. The GOI must ensure that the law will be applicable to all Indians irrespective of religions or regions.
Today, India produces huge quantities of food grains, build many roads, railways, schools, colleges, hospitals and other facilities but they are never enough for the billions of Indians. There is absolutely no denying the fact that population explosion is the single most important factor for India’s backwardness. It is the biggest impediment and stumbling-block in the way of India’s journey forward. We have enough of everything but still not enough to satisfy the needs of millions of Indians.
Checking our population growth is doable. The problem is we don’t strive to do it. Our neighbour China has controlled population to a large extent. If China can do then we too can do it. What is required is the will to do it and an undying love for our nation. It’s population that will destroy and annihilate our country and not by any other forces on earth.
The GOI may have to resort to a paradigm shift in terms of allocation of development funds. As of now, funds are allocated on the basis of population due to which sparsely populated state like Arunachal Pradesh receives less funds. This has to change. Also, the GOI may allocate special packages as a reward for keeping population in control. Such a move will encourage states to check population.
The state of Arunachal Pradesh has only about 13 lakhs plus population according to 2011 Census. However, some overtly adventurous people in the state having little knowledge of the dangerous ramifications population explosion will have on the state, often raise their voice against population control measures. Their contention is that the state has less population whesreas the land mass is huge. In fact, Arunachal Pradesh is the largest in terms of geographical area in the whole North-East.
However, people tend to forget that the state has only a few arable areas as most parts of the state consist of lofty mountains and deep valleys wherein…
