This article throws light upon the five major effects of over-pollution in India. The effects are: 1. Population and Food Supply 2. Population and Unemployment 3. Population and the Burden of Education 4. Population and Housing and Health 5. Economic Consequences of Rapid Population Growth.
Effects of Over-Population in India:
- Population and Food Supply
- Population and Unemployment
- Population and the Burden of Education
- Population and Housing and Health
- Economic Consequences of Rapid Population Growth
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Effect # 1. Population and Food Supply:
Ever since Malthus wrote his celebrated ‘Essay on population’, attention was focused on the problem of population versus food supply. There is no doubt that per capita cultivated area is on the decline in India. Between 1921 and 1991 the cultivated area per capita dropped from 1.11 acres to 0.47 acres, indicating a fall of 58%.
To compensate for this fall in cultivated land man ratio, it is imperative that efforts be made to raise productivity. The marginal increase in the per capita availability of food grains is to a great extent attributable to the rapid rise of population.
Since a major part of the increase in population takes place in the rural areas it also signifies that the share of family consumption in total food production will increase and much less will be left over as marketable surplus. These are gloomy forebodings which stress the necessity of family limitation.
Effect # 2. Population and Unemployment:
Rising population is accompanied by a rise in the labour force of the community. Hence, it makes the solution of the problem of unemployment more difficult. There has been an increase in the unemployed, both in absolute and relative terms. We have not even been able to absorb the net additions to the labour force, not to speak of clearing the backlog of unemployed.
The problem of unemployment will become far more difficult in the future. Obviously, a significant proportion of the resources will have to be used to expand employment opportunities to absorb the increasing labour force and the backlog of unemployed left over due to continuous pressure of a rapidly growing population.
Effect # 3. Population and the Burden of Education:
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Education is a key to every type of development. Population growth and education are closely related, that is why in any educational planning, the demographic factor occupies an important position. Education is a highly people oriented investment. Its main inputs are people-students and teachers. Its outputs are also people.
If the number of children increases more rapidly than the population, the need for educating them puts a heavy pressure on the nation’s resources. Those countries which have a larger proportion in the school-going age are precisely the countries which are economically backward.
When the number of school going children is very large, the number of new entrants to the school-going age ever year is also very large. When there is a backlog of children in the school-going age, who are not enrolled in schools there is a heavy pressure on educational planning.
For example, more schools and more teachers have to be provided, more playgrounds have to be made available, and cheap textbooks and other educational materials have to be produced.
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Moreover, because of the fact that the number of school buildings is inadequate, classes are overcrowded and they have to be run in shifts, and the student-teacher ratio goes up Such conditions affect the quality of education and discipline amongst the students.
Effect # 4. Population and Housing and Health:
It is impossible to estimate with any precision what proportion of urban and rural drivellers in the developing countries live in inadequate housing with inadequate provision for water, sanitation and other basic needs.
It is common for between 30% and 60% of the population in Africa, Asia and Latin America to live either in illegal settlements with little or no infrastructure or services or in overcrowded and often deteriorating tenements and cheap boarding houses.
A high proportion of the urban inhabitants in most developing countries live in relatively small urban centres. Estimates for 1990 suggest that less than 2.5% of the urban population of the developing countries live in cities with 10 million or more inhabitants.
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Many health problems affecting poorer groups are associated with overcrowding, they include household accidents, airborne infections, acute respiratory infections, pneumonia, and tuberculosis. Most poorer groups live in overcrowded conditions. The average number of persons per room is between 2 and 3.5 in most developing countries, as against 0.5 to 1.0 in most developed countries.
It is common for this number to rise to 4 or more among poorer groups. In many poorer urban districts, households may have less than one square metre of interior space per person and beds are often shared, in the most extreme cases even small rooms are subdivided to allow multiple occupancy. In Calcutta, bunks stacked one above the other in tiny rooms are available for rent by the hour, two or more persons renting the bed within any 24 hours period.
Effect # 5. Economic Consequences of Rapid Population Growth:
A rapid population growth slows down the growth of the per capita income and also restricts the growth of the gross national product by holding down the rates of savings and capital formation. As food production, sufficient for the growing population, has to be given priority, the allocation of resources to other aspects of socio-economic development becomes difficult.
Rapid population growth also tends to perpetuate the disparities in income distribution which again increase in the developing countries. The low rates of savings and the poor skills of labour operate against a full utilisation of the available resources. The quality and quantity of international trade are also affected because of all these factors.