1,000,000,000 8212; Call off the party now

Clubbed together as the BIMARU states, as the name suggests, they pose the greatest challenge to efforts for bringing about a socio-demographic change.Since these states have an overwhelming 40 per cent of the country8217;s population and account for about 42 per cent of the increase, strategies focussing on them should get top billing.

Every year India adds one Australia to its population. That8217;s 17 million more people. While becoming a demographic billionaire, India, along with China, will have the rare distinction of being one of the two countries in the world to reach that landmark. But India will soon leave China far behind. Though birth rates are beginning to show a slow but steady decline, demographers say that in another 25 years India would have become the world8217;s most populous country.

8220;Crossing the one-billion mark is a non-event. It is a matter of demographic momentum, an inevitable consequence of population growth,8221; says noted demographer Ashish Bose, who describes himself as the Government8217;smost stringent critic on population issues.

Instead of touting the success of Kerala or Tamil Nadu in curbing population, the Government should concentrate on the BIMARU states whose record in family planning is shockingly poor.

This is where, demographers feel, the National Population Policy 2000, announced by the Government in February this year, has failed to outline specific measures by these states to change their population control strategies.

8220;Except for saying that a technology mission will be set up to deal with the worst-performing states, the Policy says little else on the BIMARU states which form 40 per cent of the population and will soon reach 50 per cent,8221; says Bose.

Development experts suggest a region-specific strategy which takes into account social backwardness and illiteracy, which coupled with a history of political instability and administrative lethargy make it almost impossible to implement any social development programmes, including those relating to population, with any degree of consistency.

Unlike the situation in the southern states, another major problem is the lack of women8217;s empowerment in decisions concerning family size. According to Michael Vlassof, India representative of the U N Population Fund, part of the answer to curbing and stabilising population in these states lies in empowering women.

But they all agree that ultimately it8217;s only the survival of the child that will change people8217;s attitudes. 8220;You can only get people to adopt a small family norm when you remove the root cause of their fear, namely infant and child mortality. Ensure that children will grow into adults and you already have won half the battle,8221; says one population expert.

It has taken only about 50 years for the population to treble from the 350 million we were at Independence. And according to current projections, if the total fertility rate 8212; the average number of children a woman would have in a lifetime 8212; declines to 2.1 by 2010, then India will add half a billion by 2050. The population will continue to grow unless each woman were to have less than two children in her lifetime, a point at which the population would stabilise.

With much of the population in the reproductive age, the task of bringing down the numbers is not going to be easy. 8220;Too early, too frequent and too many,8221; the pithy slogan coined by population experts aptly describes the Indian women8217;s childbearing history with early marriages being the norm, especially in the rural areas.

Meanwhile the questions pile up. Can India provide food, primary health and education to its burgeoning millions? Can its ecological resources cope with this continuous onslaught? And where are the jobs which will help people break out of the poverty trap and opt for the much-desired small family?