India’s population growth ,2% annual growth
30 people a minute, 1,815 an hour, 1.3 million a month, Death rate decline. India is 16% of the world’s populations and is 2.5% of the world’s land
India about to pass 1 billion mark / Milestone puts nationsecond only to China in population
By MARION LLOYD
Special to the Chronicle
Houston Chronicle
NEW DELHI - India’s leaders will mark an unwelcome milestone Thursday by proclaiming that the country’s population has reached 1 billion people.
And in more unwelcome news, government statistics confirm that India is well on its way toward unseating China as the world’s most populous nation.
“It’s a very, very sobering moment in the sense that it brings home both the responsibility and the challenge that lie ahead,” said Menakshi Datta Ghosh, the government official in charge of population.
Some experts say the event underscores India’s need to curb its population growth and strengthen its family planning programs. But, they say, birth control campaigns are hindered by several factors, including the country’s vibrant democracy.
“Democracy has its many plus points. But sometimes there are too many voices making too many different points,” said Nina Puri, director of the independent Family Planning Association of India.
Every day, experts say, nearly 42,000 infants are born in India. More than a third live in poverty.
Each year, the country’s population swells by 15.5 million people, nearly equivalent to the entire population of Australia. And, if current trends hold, India will surpass China as the world’s most populous nation in 2036, according to the U.N. Population Fund.
After that date, India will continue to grow until it stabilizes at about 1.5 billion people somewhere around 2045, experts say.
They will live in a country about one-fourth the size of the United States, yet will outnumber Americans 4-to-1.
Last summer, United Nations experts announced that India was preparing to cross the 1 billion mark in August 1999 - a full nine months ahead of the country’s own projection of May 11, 2000. But the Indian government stood its ground and stuck to its own date.
Puri, the Family Planning Association director, said the government’s delay in devising a unified family planning strategy meant that attempts at boosting the number of people using birth control - currently 44 percent - had been spotty at best.
As a result, the birth rate of India’s five poorest states stands at between 4 and 4.8 children per couple, compared to less than 2 in several southern states. The five poorest states account for 40 percent of the country’s population.
Many here believe that China’s laws limiting couples to one child would not go over well in India, whose experiment with forced population control in the mid-1970s led to the collapse of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s government.
The memory of millions of people being hauled off to sterilization camps left a lasting negative image of birth control among the public, said Ghosh, the population official.
Other factors hindering family planning include religious prohibitions against birth control, particularly among the country’s 140 million Muslims, experts say.
In one sprawling shantytown on the outskirts of New Delhi, 26-year-old Jahanara Bibi explained her reluctance to undergo free sterilization, even after giving birth to six children.
“My brother says he won’t read the Koran at my funeral if I go for the operation,” she said. “He says it’s against Islam.”
The average fertility rate among Muslims is 4.5 children per couple, compared with the national average of 3 .1 per couple. But given the sensitivity of Hindu-Muslim relations in India, observers say, the government cannot be seen as targeting Muslims for its family planning campaigns.
Still, family planning experts see cause for hope. The government recently unveiled its first National Population Policy, which outlines strategies for vastly expanding the reach of family planning.
The policy reflects a new emphasis on a more “people-centered” approach, which specialists say is the only way to make a long-term difference. It stresses the need to reduce infant mortality and improve education among women.
“It’s a major step in the right direction,” said Puri, the family planning expert. “Now, let’s see how they do on the follow-up.”
The government also is experimenting with financial incentives, which are tied to social messages.
Couples who restrict family size to two children will be eligible for a one-time reward of $12 - a third of the average monthly wage in rural areas - and additional money if at least one of the children is a girl.
Other incentives include free health insurance for poor families with only two children and rewards for local governments that successfully promote the small-family ideal and reduce maternal and infant mortality in their areas.
Still, some family planning experts doubt whether such measures will be enough.
“For the poor, such small amounts of money are no help,”, said Dr. Renu Chopra, who runs the family planning wing of the Red Cross hospital in New Delhi.
Eying the few women awaiting sterilization operations, Chopra said that despite her general faith in democracy, she was wistful for Indira Gandhi’s years.
“Compulsory birth control is the only way,” she said, adding, “Of course in India, that’s not possible.”