Curbing Population- Need Of An Hour
"The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is the world’s blueprint for a better future for all on a healthy planet. On World Population Day, we recognize that this mission is closely interrelated with demographic trends including population growth, ageing, migration, and urbanization."
- UN Secretary-General António Guterres
According to the recent United Nations estimate, the current world population is 7.7 billion as of July 2019 elaborated by Worldometers. Moreover, The United States Census Bureau estimates that there is one birth every 7 seconds and one death every 13 seconds, with a net gain of one person on earth every 11 seconds. Talking about the numbers, The United Nations has been considering its predictions and it believes that the world population in 2050 will be around 9 billion. The numbers are rigorously increasing and this has factually turned into an alarming situation and getting it under control is the need of an hour.
World Population Day focuses and seeks to focus attention on the instantly growing numbers of humans on the Earth. India is believed to be the second-most populous country in the world with a staggering population of 7.7 billion. According to the World Population Prospects 2019 released by the Population Division of the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, India is expected to add nearly 273 million people between 2019 and 2050 with that figures it will be no wonder that India will surpass China in the mere future. Therefore, World Population Day is of utmost importance and is an obligation for today’s situation of India.
There exist numerous factors that contribute to this rigorously increasing numbers and one of the most contributing elements is believed to be the birth rate. With the advent of better healthcare, food availability, certain programs and initiatives of the government for improving the living standards of people, etc., the death rate has been constantly decreasing at a higher rate but there has been no subsequent change observed in the birth rate. Factors like illiteracy and poverty also add up to the contributing list. This is an extremely sensitive topic because it certainly has many religious and social factors harnessed with it.
There are innumerable initiatives taken by the government that focuses on the family planning activities and on stabilizing population. The government has launched a scheme to utilize the services of ASHA to deliver contraceptives at the doorstep of beneficiaries. Moreover, strategies like Prerna Strategy and Santushti Strategy are also taken into consideration which aims to stabilize population and curb birth rate stringently. According to PIB, as a result of the efforts of Government the decadal growth rate of the country has declined significantly from 21.54% for the period 1991-2000 to 17.64% during 2001-11. The Total Fertility Rate (TFR) also declined from 3.6 in 1991 to 2.4 in 2012 as per the Sample Registration System (SRS). 23 states/UTs have achieved the replacement TFR of 2.1 or less. Nevertheless, to increase access to family planning UNFPA also provides global leadership by suiting partners and including governments so that it could lead to the development of evidence. Moreover, offers like programmatic, technical and financial assistance to developing countries are also made.
