Let not these be number only: Demographic Dividend or Population Liability

The provisional data of 15th National Census Report has been issued by the Regitrat Registrar General of India and Census Commissioner C Chandramauli on 31st March 2011. This mammoth exercise of compiling the nation-wide data is of great importance not only for government, policy makers, marketers to formulate policies, allocate funding et al but it is equally important for business entities, institutions and individuals.

From previous census 2001 which numbered the population of India 1.02 billion has now reached to 1.21 billion as per latest release by the Census Report 2011, adding 181 million (18.1 crore) during the decade 2001-2011. The population mix of nation which is now home to 17.5% of world population comprising of 623.7 million male and586.5 million females is now equal to combine population of many countries like United States (300.8 million), Indonesia (237.5 million), Brazil (190.7 million), Pakistan (170.6 million), Bangladesh (164.4 million) and Japan (127.9 million) put together.

Various interesting facts are coming from the latest report like two leading Indian states- Uttar Pradesh (199 million people) and Maharashtra (112.3 million) has more population than the leading country of the world i.e. United States (300.8 million)

Literacy rate has been improved during this ten year gap from 64 to 74 – this means almost 74 percent of Indians are now literate. As far as state wise literacy rates are concern Kerala has the #1 rank with 93.91% followed by Lakshadweep at 92.28 percent. Bihar is at the bottom of the ladder with literacy rate of 63.82 followed by Arunachal Pradesh at 66.95.

Few good things that are quiet evident from this provisional data that literacy rate has been improved from 64% to 74% , overall female’s sex ratio has improved, from 933 to 940 women for 1000 men and the ,MOST important thing is that swelling population growth rate has been come down to 3.90% from previous 21.54% to 17.64% during this decade. And this is a very positive sign for a nation who has 2.4% of world’s surface area to accommodate the 17.5% of the entire population and of which around 40% live below the poverty line in a very deprived conditions.

As per the 15th National Census Report we have added more than18 crore people which means population of Brazil added to India which itself is the fifth most populous country of the world. All such startling data which started to float from now will keep us shocked, mused, distressed, cheer and confused is the outcome of the exercise which commenced in April 2010, with 2.5 million officials traveling across the nation to reach more than 600,000 villages and 7,000 towns and cities.

Now the big opportunity for India is to harness this unique asset of ‘demographic dividend’ from 1.21 billion numbers. We must now act swiftly with good approach, progressive attitude, pragmatic policies and solution-oriented focus before this ‘demographic dividend’ become population liability.

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[1] All sources are from National Census Report 2011 and Wikepedia