India has experienced rapid population growth and currently has a large, young population. It entered the second stage of demographic transition in the early 20th century, resulting in high birth rates and declining death rates. Currently, India's population is over 1.3 billion with a growth rate of around 1.1% annually and a population density of over 400 people per square kilometer. While India has made progress increasing food production and literacy rates, its population size has put pressure on resources and the economy, with many Indians still facing issues like poverty, unemployment and low standards of living.

1. Impact of Population in terms
of Economic Development
-Dr. Karishma Chaudhary

2. The following are features of India’s population:
 Large Size and Fast Growth

3. 2. Second Stage of Demographic Transition:
 According to the theory of demographic transition, the population growth of a country
passes through three different stages as development proceeds. The first stage is characterised
by high birth rate and high death rate. So in this stage the net growth of population is zero. Till
1921, India was in the 1st stage of demographic transition.
 The second stage is featured by high birth rate and declining death rate leading to the rapid
growth of population. India entered the second stage of demographic transition after 1921

6. Demographics of India
Growth rate 1.1% (2020)
Birth rate 18.2 births/1,000 population (2020)
Death rate 7.3 deaths/1,000 population (2020)
Life expectancy 69.7 years (2020)

7. Rapidly Rising Density:
 India occupies 2.4 per-cent of the total land area of the world but supports 17.7 per-cent of
the total world population.
 Population Density 464 per sq km
 In 2011,325 persons per sq km
 The density of population in India was 117 per square km. in 1951

8. Sex Ratio
 Sex Ratio of India is 108.176, i.e., 108.176 males per 100 females in 2020. It
means that India has 924 females per 1000 males.

9.  India has more than 50% of its population below the age of 25 and more than
65% below the age of 35.

10. Population Pyramid
 A population pyramid is a graphical representation of the age and sex composition
of a specific population.
• It consists of two histograms, one for each gender (by convention, men on the
left and women on the right) where the numbers are shown horizontally and
the ages vertically.
• The numbers by gender and by age depend on interactions between fertility,
mortality and migrations.
• The shape of the pyramid and its variations over the years depend, above all, on
the variations in fertility.
• The pyramid can also assume a columnar shape (with vertical sides rather than
sloped sides), or have an irregular profile.

11.  https://www.populationpyramid.net/india/2020/

14. • India’s pyramid is bottom heavy i.e. the Indian population has a larger proportion of children,
teenagers and young adults compared to China’s.
• Population Distribution
• India
• The country’s population for the age cohorts of 0-4, 5-9, 10-14 and 15-19 is roughly equal, whereas the numbers for
older groups become progressively smaller.
• This means that the country’s younger age groups have stopped growing in numbers now and are likely to shrink slightly
soon.
• This, however, does not mean that India’s population will also start shrinking soon.
• Except for the oldest groups, India seems to have more males than females for every cohort.
• China
• The country’s largest cohort is in its late 40s, although it is more gender balanced than its younger cohorts,
suggesting that sex-selective abortions are likely to have taken off in the last few decades.

15. • Working Age Population
In 25-65 age group, India currently has around 650 million people and China 830
million.
• By 2040, India is likely to reach 900 million, whereas China will have around 730
million.
• In other words, India will go from having 180 million less working-age people
than China today to about 170 million more—a net gain of a third of a billion in
20 years.

16.  Way Forward
• Just having people in the working age is not enough. How many are in the labour
force and their productivity are important. The government needs to focus on
the same.
• India needs to invest more, and efficiently, in human capital and infrastructure.
• For the former, investments in health and sanitation have to be sustained and
more Public Private Partnership (PPP) models are required to ensure basic education.
• For the latter, a bigger push for affordable rental housing in cities has to be
considered, along with more investments in rail connectivity.

17. 6. Predominance of Rural Population:
 Another feature of Indian population is the dominance of rural population. In 1951, rural
population was 82.7% and urban population was 17.3%.
 Current 35 % urban 65% rural

18. Low Quality Population:
 The quality of population can be judged from life expectancy, the level of literacy and level
of training of people. Keeping these parameters in mind, quality of population in India is low.
 HDI index ranking 129
 Low Literacy Level:
 Literacy Level in India is low. Literacy level in 1991 was 52.2% while male-female
literacy ratio was 64.1 and 39.3 percent. In 2001, the literacy rate improved to 65.4 percent
out of which made literacy was 75.8 and female literacy was 52.1 percent.
 As per NSO, India's average literacy rate is 77.7%(current)

19.  Education level
 Education in India is primarily provided by public schools (controlled and funded by the
government at three levels: central, state and local) and private schools. Under various articles of
the Indian Constitution, free and compulsory education is provided as a fundamental right to
children aged 6 to 14. The approximate ratio of public schools to private schools in India is 7:5.
 India has made progress in increasing the attainment rate of primary education.
 In 2011, Approximately 75% of the population, aged between 7 and 10 years, was literate.
 India's improved education system is often cited as one of the main contributors to its economic
development.
 Much of the progress, especially in higher education and scientific research, has been credited to
various public institutions.
 While enrollment in higher education has increased steadily over the past decade, reaching a gross
enrollment ratio of 24% in 2013,
 there still remains a significant distance to catch up with tertiary education enrolment levels of
developed nations, a challenge that will be necessary to overcome in order to continue to reap a
demographic dividend from India's comparatively young population.

20.  NEP 2020: Education sector to get 6% of GDP, earlier it was 1.7%

21.  Low Life Expectancy:
 By life expectancy we mean the average number of years a person is expected to live. Life
expectancy in India was 33 years. It was increased to 59 in 1991 and in 2001, life
expectancy increased to 63.9.
 Current 69.27 years

22. Work Participation rate-49.8%
 The labour force participation rate stood at 49.8% in 2017-18, falling sharply
from 55.9% in 2011-12. Half of India's working-age population (15 years and
above), for the first time, is not contributing to any economic activity, according to
the National Sample Survey Office's (NSSO's) latest jobs survey

24.  Is India Over Populated?

25. Symptoms of Over-population:
 The concept of over-population is essentially a quantitative concept. When the population
size of the country exceeds the ideal size, we call it over-population. According to T.R.
Malthus, the father of demography, when the population of a country exceeds the means of
substance available, the country faces the problem of over-population.

26.  No doubt, food production has increased substantially but problems like poverty, hunger,
malnutrition are still acute.
 Agriculture is overcrowded in rural areas of the country which is characterized by
diminishing returns.
 This fact leads to the conclusion that India has symptoms of over-population
 . Indian low per capita income, low standard of living, wide spread unemployment and
under-employment etc. indicate that our population size has crossed the optimum limit.

27.  As per Second Advance Estimates for 2019-20, total foodgrain production in the
country is estimated at record 291.95 million tonnes which is higher by 6.74 million
tonnes than the production of foodgrain of 285.21 million tonnes achieved during
2018-19.
 However, the production during 2019-20 is higher by 26.20 million tonnes than the
previous five years’ (2013-14 to 2017-18) average production of foodgrain.

28.  Total production of rice during 2019-20 is estimated at record 117.47 million
tonnes. It is higher by 9.67 million tonnes than the five years’ average production of
107.80 million tonnes.
Production of wheat during 2019-20 is estimated at record 106.21 million tonnes. It
is higher by 2.61 million tonnes as compared to wheat production during 2018-19
and is higher by 11.60 million tonnes than the average wheat production of 94.61
million tonnes.

29.  Production of Nutri / Coarse Cereals estimated at 45.24 million tonnes, which is
higher by 2.18 million tonnes than the production of 43.06 million tonnes achieved
during 2018-19. Further, it is also higher by 2.16 million tonnes than the average
production.
Total Pulses production during 2019-20 is estimated at 23.02 million tonnes which
is higher by 2.76 million tonnes than the Five years’ average production of 20.26
million tonnes.

30.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QERpT1Bq8AA
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmfzwwrCrrU