Development
India to overtake China as world's biggest country by 2026, says report
Officials say the rise in population to more than 1.6 billion by 2050 will threaten the country's rapid economic development.
The subject of population growth in the country has been almost taboo since Indira Gandhi's heavy-handed population policies, which included forced sterilisations and vasectomies, caused widespread anger in the mid 1970s.
According to the author, Dr Amarjeet Singh of the National Population Stabilisation Fund, India will need to reconsider its position to stop population growth fuelling poverty.
India's current population of 1.1 billion will swell by 371 million in 2026, the report said, taking it beyond China's current 1.35 billion.
The scale of India's population explosion is highlighted by the fact that its most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, has more than 180 million people.
The report's publication provoked a clash between India's population experts and leading commentators over whether the rise will help or hinder the country's remarkable growth story. India's economy is currently growing at more than nine per cent – second only to China.
Author Dr Amarjeet Singh warned that becoming the world's most populous country will trap several hundred million Indians in poverty.
"If we continue to grow at the current pace we will double our population in fifty years making sustainable development unattainable," he said.
His report blamed economic insecurity among the country's 500 million poor, which led to high rates of teenage pregnancies. It revealed that a quarter of India's teenage girls were either pregnant or mothers by age eighteen.
Those girls who left school early were more likely to become teenage mothers, while those who remained at school showed lower fertility levels, the report claimed.
Dr Singh's report for the Ministry of Heath and Family Welfare was denounced by rival experts and commentators who said a growing nation could pay a "demographic dividend" of even higher economic growth.
"This is absolute bunkum," said AR Nanda, executive director of the Population Foundation of India and former commissioner of India's census.
"Over the next 25 years India will reap a demographic dividend of high economic growth providing we invest in human resources and health. We could see an economic surge," he added.
Pavan K Varma, one of India's most influential social commentators, said India already produces 160,000 newly qualified engineers and more than one million technicians every year, which will increase as its population and investment in education rise.
He said increasing education opportunities and the rise in access to television was already slowing the population growth rate.
"More than 500 million people in rural India are watching cable television and as more and more try to replicate the lifestyles they see portrayed so fleshily, they see how each child reduces the possibility of being part of this upwardly mobile curve," he said.
(Published by The Telegraph – July 12, 2010)