Increasing Population and Decreasing Resources  

Vijay Garg 

 

  Wildly increasing population is one of the biggest problems in the world today. In many countries of the world, the resources available there are now decreasing in proportion to the increasing population. Obviously, if the population of any country continues to grow at a rapid pace, the pressure on the natural resources available there will also increase in the same proportion. If we look at it in the context of India, on July 7, 2024, India's population was 1 billion 44 crore 19 lakh 10,332. It covers approximately 18.02 percent of the world's total population (8.119 billion).But who is forced to live on only two and a half percent of the world's land. According to the United Nations' global report on food crisis released at the end of April this year, today about 282 million people in 59 countries around the world are forced to remain hungry. According to the report, due to deteriorating food security in the war-torn Gaza Strip and Sudan, more than 24 million people had to go hungry due to lack of food by 2022. If seen, the report of the United Nations clearly indicates that as the world's population increased, so did the number of people.The number also continued to increase. The first report of the United Nations on food shortage came in 2016, compared to which in the latest report the number of hungry people around the world has increased by four times. It is worth noting that the increasing population is not a simple task of providing basic needs like food, clothing, shelter, drinking water, medical care, medicines etc. to all the citizens in proportion to the population. To supply increasing population to any government is due to various sources of energy, oil and natural coal, oil natural gases etc. are also highly dependent onThe pressure has increased, to reduce which it is necessary to find and use alternative sources of energy. Economist Thomas Robert Malthus, after mathematically considering the relationship between food and human population in 1798, showed that increasing food supply leads to rapid population growth. increases and depletes the available resources. • Resulting in continued human suffering. Unless the population is controlled. In 1888, the then Viceroy Lord Dufferin had expressed the apprehension that agriculture in India wouldThe production is low and due to rapid population growth famine occurs here. Despite this, India's average population growth rate from 1871 to 1941 was 0.60 percent, while the world average was 0.69 percent. However, in the first two decades of the twentieth century the population growth rate remained relatively low. 1931 Census of 1931 revealed that the population in India increased at the rate of one percent every year between 1921-1931, everyone was shocked, but after 1951 this rate reached around two percent. However, since the 1970s, there has been a continuous decline in the country's population growth rate.This is probably the result of improvements made in the level of education and health in the last few decades, because till now the rate of population growth has been found highest in those areas where people are not educated and healthy. Although this decline has been relatively slow, if we look at the Economic Survey data, the annual population growth rate in India which was 2.5 percent between 1971-81, came down to 1.3 percent by the middle of 2011-16. The other side of this is that due to increase in population and decrease in resources, countries are in debt.The burden also starts increasing. According to a report by Business Standard, by September 2023, the total debt burden on India had reached Rs 205 lakh crore. At the same time, according to a report released in 2021 by the World Economic Forum, India's rank in education quality is 90th. According to a UN report on population released on November 15, 2022, India will overtake China by 2027, whereas in April 2023 itself, defying the UN's assessment, India became the most populous country in the world by overtaking China. United in February 2024The nation itself had released another report. Although in 2011 There has been no census in India since. However, unemployment, hunger, malnutrition, disease, poverty, helplessness etc. arising due to uncontrolled population growth are such problems which can destroy the moral, ideological, cultural, traditional and moral fabric of any society. Are. Due to this, the social development, cultural upliftment, mental and spiritual upliftment of the individuals may get hampered if this happens. So violence all around in the societyThere will be a huge increase in crimes like rape, corruption, looting, baiting, theft, snatching, murder, suicide, extremism and terrorism. People will only pursue their own interests without caring about law and social order. More or less, our country is passing through similar circumstances today. By the way, if we talk about India's experiences regarding population, it is surprising for any Prime Minister of the country except Gandhi that during the tenure of Prime Minister Indira, no drastic steps were taken by the government, which could curb the uncontrolled population growth.Can be installed. , Perhaps the governments may have been avoiding angering the public, because before independence, there was a perception in the Indian society that high population was the measure of development. Actually, in those days the decrease in population was considered to be the result of negative circumstances, which was a bad situation, but with time our thinking changed and we started considering whether India is capable of handling such a large population. . The tragedy of severe drought and famine occurring from time to time also underlined this concern.Pillow. But till the 1970s, our governments kept looking for a solution to population growth by increasing food grain production and family planning programs were strictly adopted, and then politicians became very angry at the increasing population. He thought it better to remain silent. Even after globalization, the issue of population remained pressing in India, but the current Prime Minister, on the occasion of Independence Day in 2019, expressed concern over population growth from the ramparts of the Red Fort and called on the states to make plans to stop it.Did. Presenting the interim Budget 2024, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced the formation of a high-powered committee to address the challenges of rapidly increasing population and demographic changes, keeping in mind the goal of creating a 'developed India'. Will give suggestions to deal with the problems.