My solution

The root cause of all that ails India is galloping population, and the repercussions of unchecked growth can be seen everywhere, especial...

The root cause of all that ails India is galloping population, and the repercussions of unchecked growth can be seen everywhere, especially in the Capital. Delhi, in a way, has become a microcosm of the the problem facing the entire country.

Once again, World Population Day on July 11 is here remind us how Delhi is bursting at the seams. The Capital8217;s problems are more severe than other cities because it just keeps expanding, eating into the neighbouring states of Uttar Pradesh and Haryana, unlike Mumbai which is built on a limited area and has little room for growth. The 1991 census put Delhi8217;s population at 9.42 crore, and projected that it would be about 10.08 crore in 1999, which I am sure it is now, if not more.

Not only have we crossed the crore mark, but thanks to ever-increasing migrants, the slum population in the city and the rural population around it is growing at twice the rate. Delhi is really two cities 8212; the posh areas and the slums 8212; with the slums and rural areas accounting for 42 per cent of the city8217;s population. This figure, again, is from the 1991 census, and must have crossed the 50 per cent mark by now.

As I have pointed out already, the population is actually shooting up more in the rural areas of Uttar Pradesh that fall in the NCR. These are the areas where there is higher fertility and infant and maternal mortality, with little or no healthcare facilities and civic amenities. One of the basic ways to curtail population is to provide better healthcare because high infant mortality is one of the reasons why people have many children. If people in rural areas were convinced that their progeny would reach adulthood, they would no doubt be induced to have no more than two children.

Something needs to be done right now, for thanks to the population explosion, the civic infrastructure of the Capital is on the verge of collapsing. Already water is becoming scarce in many areas and power cuts have become a daily feature. Public awareness has to increase to bring in a certain amount of discipline into our lives. So much electricity is lost in pilferage. People see it happening but turn a blind eye because they don8217;t know who and where to complain.

This can only be done by setting up citizen committees to monitor civic agencies and make sure the amenities they provide are efficiently utilised. Such committees have been set up in the West and play a very important role in the smooth functioning of civic bodies. There is a vital need for them here, for our civic bodies seem to be incapable of functioning well on their own.

Closer home, Consumer Protection Courts have been quite effective in attending to complaints. Similar bodies should be set up to attend to complaints about infrastructure problems. These would, no doubt, be equally useful. Sad though it is, effective monitoring is the only way to get the city to function.