 Hello everyone, my name is Deeksha Jain and I secured rank 22 in the civil services examination in 2018. In this video, I will be talking about population and related issues. Population is a dynamic force which can contribute to the potential growth and prosperity of a nation as well as neutralize its development and hence it can be productive as well as an unproductive force. This population in 2019 was 1.37 billion and we are soon targeting to sort of, we are soon going to overtake China as the most populous country of the world. In India, UP, Maharashtra, Bihar, West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh constitute 48.9% of the total population. There is some disparity in the contribution to the population between states. So let us first talk about the causes of such a high population in India. The first one is economic factors. In economic factors, the dominance of agriculture where the number of hands that increase in a family also means that the labour in the field is going to increase. So it creates that kind of mentality, a slow process of industrialization and urbanization, poverty, lack of education, especially about family welfare. So these have contributed to high population. There have been also socio-cultural factors. For example, religion. If I were to take an example, a woman in Ireland had to died because she was not allowed to abort her child. So religious preoccupations like this, there are religions which are against birth control. So that also leads to an explosion of population. Early marriage, compulsory marriage, notions for requirement of a male child. So there are families which keep having female child till they finally have a male child. So that also increases the population. So all these socio-cultural factors, behavioral factors play a major role in the population of a country. Another major reason is poor health infrastructure and technological factors. And also because of poor health infrastructure, India had used to have a very high mortality rate, child mortality rate, the mother's mortality rate. So because of this also, because people are scared that their children are not going to survive, they would have a lot of children. So we have been doing well in this regard and we have improved our IMR as well as MMR. But this also is a factor. Then poor and lower position of women in the society. As I said, first is the preference for the male child and lack of autonomy of women over her own reproduction. Often women don't want to reproduce but they are not the decision makers about that. So that leads to higher population in the country. Now we will talk about the consequences of population growth. Now there are positive consequences as well. For example, higher population is a source of productive labour. If the population, if the demographic dividend is utilized properly, then the number of skilled workforce, the industry should be booming, there will be a lot of employment. It is, population is also a big source of market. The more the population, the more the demand in the economy. So more the demand for industries and services etc. The negative side of a very high population is that first is the demographic disaster. If we are not able to skill our youth, India currently has a demographic dividend which means that there are more people who are young and eligible for work than people who are dependent that is children and elderly. So if we don't train these people and if we don't give employment and make these forces productive then it can lead to a demographic disaster which basically means that it will lead to unemployment, increase in crime, violence and frustration among the youth. Second negative impact is that adverse impact of economic development. So income generated by the economy is neutralized by addition of population because all that income is used, there is no savings, therefore there is no investment in the economy and therefore there is no capital with the industry. So this also sort of leads to slow down in the economy. It also leads to poor quality of human resources, low standard of living, declining man is to land ratio. So increasing population density, quality of life also suffers because of that. Increasing crimes and political instability, poverty and unemployment. So these are all the negative aspects of a very high population. From the very beginning we have, India as an independent country has realized the problems that are associated with an unmanageable and very high population. And there have been various initiatives taken in this regard. Earlier the Mukherjee committee propagated the Gandhi method which talked about celibacy, delayed marriage. Later more clinical method and promotion of contraceptives etc. was promoted. There was Boree committee in 1946. In the fifth plan we had a target approach which was more forceful. It was target based in terms of sterilizations and it led to deaths of people also and because it was force it was not accepted by the society. It could not lead to the change that it would have, had it been voluntary. And finally after a few years the population policy to family welfare, so the focus of the government was more on promoting the welfare of the family, health of the children so that parents are sure of the survivability of their children and parents are more educated about family planning. It was a more voluntary and inclusive effort. In the 12th plan we finally had the national population policy in 2000. Here we had certain targets where we wanted to take the total fertility rate to 2.1 which is the replacement ratio IMR to infant mortality ratio to 30 etc. So the immediate objectives of the national population policy 2000 was one meeting the unmet need of contraceptives. It was made sure that it is being made sure that contraceptives are available to everybody so that it promotes better family planning. Second is health infrastructure, health in terms of their needs to be proper delivery and the mother and the child both need to be safe. And fourth is the Janani Suraksha Yojna has played a very important role in promoting institutional deliveries. Again institutionalized deliveries among the medium term objective to achieve the replacement ratio of population which is 2.1. Long term target of national population policy is population stabilization. Now let us talk about the things to be done in this regard. So what can be done and what is being done to control the population of the country? One is reduce the dropout rate. India the government is focusing on near 100 percent middle school attendance because their education is hampered and it also does not promote good family planning behavior. It leads to child marriages, many girls dropout and they are married off at a very young age. So for all these things that is important. IMR should be that is infant mortality rate should be reduced to 30 by 1000. Compulsory registration of births, deaths for better data analysis and management. Special care for women's education and women's empowerment. What is important because it is women is the mother and if she is empowered then she will be able to take make choices about her own reproduction. A promotion of the small family norm. So the very famous you know Hamdo, Hamari, those slogan and basically using nudge theory or nudging people towards better reproductive behavior. Decentralization of health infrastructure for better facilities even to the last mile even an interior rural area there should be institutionalized deliveries. The government is also set up the National Population Commission in 2005 to achieve the objectives of the policy. There has been a population stabilization fund to help those states which are lacking behind and an empowered action group to supervise the implementation of population control measures in the center as the states. Again there are certain suggestions effective implementation of family planning norms. So it is not just the birth control but it is basically working on an entire behavioral psychological change towards better reproductive decisions, better family welfare and family planning. Research and development also in this area needs to be promoted. Health infrastructure needs to be promoted. Intersectoral approach integration of the policies which focus on better fertility like Janani Siraksha and other health policies should be integrated with this. Local care and attention should be there for rural areas because there the fertility rate is higher than in the urban areas. Better training of health workers, appointment of health workers, Asha's in rural areas. All these things basically create a conducive environment for people towards a better fertility rate and finally to bring stability to the Indian population. So that will be all about population and related issues. Thank you so much. Subscribe to our channel and click on the bell icon to get latest updates on upcoming videos.