Create a job for every newborn

The concern for population stabilisation and good governance, indeed, must become the concern of all. It may be contended that high population growth is to a certain extent inevitable, especially during the early stages of demographic transition; what is important, however, is to facilitate the acceleration of the pace of such demographic transition.

The issue is how to transform our population into an asset, converting our human potential into a high value-added workforce resource for contributing towards raising the standards of living of the entire population in a sustainable manner. The Five Year Plans formulated since 1952 have also been addressing the concerns of population growth. Over the last five decades, successive governments have come out with various schemes, policies and programmes to confront the challenge of population growth.

Between 1947 and 2001, there has been a trebling of India’s population. Much money was spent, many programmes announced and put into operation; in between, we graduated from family planning to family welfare and from population control to population stabilisation. We also witnessed a critical phase of these efforts during the days of the internal emergency. But, in real terms, these efforts have not curbed our population growth as is evidnt from the fact that we are fast catching up on China and are set to overtake our northern neighbour by 2030.

A marked slowdown in birth rates will leave the under-15 population at roughly the same size as it is today. It goes to show that the pressure for expansion of the educational system will come from increasing enrolment in our educational institutions. The population over 60 years of age is estimated to double from 60 to 120 million people and the Government will be duty bound to adopt special measures to support the vulnerable group, which will include a high percentage of illiterates who are also susceptible to both malnutrition and health-related problems.

A rational population policy and an appropriate development strategy will have to be synchronised. We cannot ignore the fact that uncontrolled growth of population has detrimental implications for development plans, aggravating the problems of food supply, nutrition and employment, and, above all, hampering our efforts in ensuring a decent and dignified life to our people. A perceptive population policy should be an essential component of the overall development programme.

I believe that equal access to gainful employment, which is a Constitutional right, has to be backed by the full commitment of the government. While it is likely that the population growth slows down to replacement levels over the next two decades, our greatest challenge will be to provide employment opportunities for all job seekers. According to the Planning Commission’s estimates, it is likely that the working age group population will expand by about 45 per cent, leading to a rapid growth of working people and the number of job seekers. To meet this situation, India will need to generate around 200 million additional jobs over the next 20 years. Thus, a major thrust of our economic policy should be towards ensuring generation of employment opportunities for such additional requirements.

We also have to seriously work out national development strategies that can achieve sustainable and equitable human development and also empower people. We should go beyond social safety nets and focus directly on providing jobs and raising incomes of the marginalised sections of society, through explicit policy intervention. We need to frame and implement public policies that enable income generation and facilitate equitable distribution, especially to benefit the poor and the vulnerable.

A higher level of economic development can only be the outcome of good governance practices that can help stabilise population. I believe that by integrating our population policies with our economic and developmental strategies, we will not only be able to speed up the pace of sustainable development and poverty alleviation, but will also be able to contribute to the achievement of our population policy objectives and ensure an improved quality of life for our people.

Family planning measures alone are not sufficient to contain the growth of population in a country; what is more important is economic and social transformation. We have the example of Kerala where there has been a remarkable success in population stabilisation, which experts assert, has been made possible by the high rate of literacy, awareness, healthcare and their like.

I believe that decentralisation is necessary to help create an enabling environment. A vigorous pursuit of the two-child norm is likely to have most undesirable consequences, as it could degenerate into sex-selective abortions. Indeed, it was the recognition of this link that compelled the Chinese government to officially abandon its one-child-per-family norm.

If we recognise the importance of the participatory process as the key element of good governance, our policies and programmes for population stabilisation will find wider acceptance among the people and would also lead to better results.