Economic Challenger Issue 85 Oct to Dec 2019 | Page 5

INDIA: TOWARDS A DEMOGRAPHIC DIVIDEND OR
A MALTHUSIAN CATASTROPHE: SOME ISSUES
Mithilesh Kumar Sinha
Professor In Economics, Department of Economics, Nagaland University,
Lumami E-mail: mithileshkumarsinha5@gmail. com
PROLOGUE
I
ndia is the second most populated country
in the world after China. The population of
India is projected to be close to 1.37 billion
or 1,369 million in 2019, compared to 1.354
billion in 2018. The population growth rate for
2019 is expected at 1.08%. India will add 1.49
crore in 2019 that is near to current population
of 74th ranked Somalia. It is now estimated
that by 2024, India will most likely overtake
China to become the most populous country on
the earth with 1.44 billion people. And by 2029,
India will cross the 1.5 billion mark. The
population of India will decrease after 2061.
India's population grew at an average annual
rate of 1.2 percent between 2010 and 2019 to
1.36 billion, more than double the annual
growth rate of China, according to a report by
the United Nations Population Fund.
'Demography is destiny.' Like geography, it
influences politics, economics, and issues of
war and peace. Sitting on a population time
bomb is bad enough for any country. To ignore
it or pretend that the problem does not exist
would be like pulling the wool over one's own
eyes. A teeming population bursting at the
seams requires no bigger a boost than total
apathy on the part of the government to make
it an urgent issue. In a country like India, where
the government is expected to take the
initiative in crucial matters of public interest,
the onus of keeping the population within
Economic Challenger// ISSN 0975-1351/ Issue 85, Oct. - Dec. 2019
manageable parameters of governance for
achieving the optimum level of economic and
social development of the nation rests with the
government (Gupta: 2019).
The adverse effects of unbridled population
growth are manifest everywhere ~ be it our
hugely overpopulated cities or falling
agricultural land holdings. Problems of poverty,
unemployment, sanitation, rising crimes, all
are due to the absence of population control.
That is why Prime Minister Narendra Modi has
flagged in his Independence Day speech a new
priority for his administration's second term in
office—controlling the explosive growth in
population—a trend that, if left unchecked,
could go against efforts to bring millions of
people out of poverty and undo the benefits of
higher welfare spending for the poor.
REVIEW OF LITERATURE
A larger population may help overcome
p o s s i b ly d i m i n i s h i n g re t u r n s t o t h i s
generation's human capital in the production
of the next generation's human capital because
higher population growth induces more
specialization and a broader market that raise
returns to human capital and knowledge. If
human capital per capita were sufficiently
large, the economy would move to steady-state
growth, whereby in the steady-state growth
path, consumption per capita would increase at
a slower rate than human capital if the
India: Towards A Demographic Dividend
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