MACRO ECONOMICS

PROJECT
TOPIC-OVER POPULATION AS A MAJOR
PROBLEM IN INDIA

THE TEAM
 MAHIR TULI-1154
 VANSH BANSAL-1181
 ARYAMAN RANA-1136
 HARSHAL PILANIA-1151
 MILIND KABRA-1157
 MUSTAfA sYED-1158
 PRANJAL JANGPANGI-1163
 INDEX PAGE

1. Introduction
2. Discussion
3. Suggestions
4. Conclusions
5. Bibliography
 PROJECT REPORT
IDENTIFICATION OF THE PROBLEM-
India has fallen behind in the race to meet the
Millennium Development Goals for reducing its
birth rate by 2015. Only about half of India's 26
states have reached the targeted level of two children
per mother. In large, economically depressed states
like Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, an average woman still
bears over four children over her lifetime. This
means India will surpass China to become the
world's most populous country by 2030. The
continuing swell threatens the environment and
places a tremendous burden on government
services. Every nook and corner of India is a clear
display of increasing population. Whether you are in
a metro station, airport, railway station, road,
highway, bus stop, hospital, shopping mall, market,
temple, or even in a social/ religious gathering, we
see all these places are overcrowded at any time of
the day. This is a clear indication of overpopulation
in the country.
According to the Indian census, carried out in 2011,
the population of India was exactly 1,210,193,422,
which means India has crossed the 1-billion mark.
This is the second most populous country of the
world after China and the various studies have
projected that India will be world’s number-1
populous country, surpassing China, by 2025.
Inspite of the fact that the population policies, family
planning and welfare programmes undertaken by the
Govt. of India have led to a continuous decrease in
the fertility rate, yet the actual stabilisation of
population can take place only by 2050.

Following are the main effects

of the population boom :
1. Problem of Investment Requirement:
Indian population is growing at a rate of 1.8 percent
per annum. In order to achieve a given rate of
increase in per capita income, larger investment is
needed. This adversely affects the growth rate of the
economy. In India, annual growth rate of population
is 1.8 percent and capital output ratio is 4:1. It means
that in order to stabilize the existing economic
growth rate (4 X 1.8) = 7.2 percent of national
income must be invested.
2. Problem of Capital Formation:
Composition of population in India hampers the
increase in capital formation. High birth rate and low
expectancy of life means large number of
dependents in the total population. In India 35
percent of population is composed of persons less
than 14 years of age. Most of these people depend
on others for subsistence. They are unproductive
consumers. The burden of dependents reduces the
capacity of the people to save. So the rate of capital
formation falls.
3. Effect on per Capita Income:
Large size of population in India and its rapid rate of
growth results into low per capita availability of
capital. From 1950-51 to 1980-81. India’s national
income grew at an average annual rate of 3.6 percent
per annum. But per capita income had risen around
one percent. It is due the fact that population growth
has increased by 2.5 percent.
4. Effect on Food Problem:
Rapid rate of growth of population has been the root
cause of food problem.
Shortage of food grains hampers economic
development in two ways:
(a) People do not get sufficient quantity of food due
low availability of food which affects their health
and productivity. Low productivity causes low per
capita income and thus poverty.
(b) Shortage of food-grains obliges the under-
developed countries to import food grains from
abroad. So a large part of foreign exchange is spent
on it. So development work suffers. So rise in
population causes food problem.
5. Problem of Unemployment:
Large size of population results in large army of
labour force. But due to shortage of capital resources
it becomes difficult to provide gainful employment
to the entire working population. Disguised
unemployment in rural areas and open
unemployment in urban areas are the normal
features of an under developed country like India.
6. Low Standard of Living:
Rapid growth of population accounts for low
standard of living in India. Even the bare necessities
of life are not available adequately. According to Dr.
Chander Shekhar population in India increases by
about 1.60 crore. It requires 121 lakh tonnes of food
grains, 1.9 lakh metres of cloth and 2.6 lakh houses
and 52 lakh additional jobs.
SOLUTIONS AND MEASURES
SUGGESTED
1. Development
Why the enormous population and the increasing
rate of it is the biggest challenge faced by the
developing nations of Africa and Asia while the
same is a little or no threat in countries like America,
Europe or Japan. Lack of Development implies high
poverty, high illiteracy, high discrimination, lack of
awareness, lack of medical facilities and thus in turn
increased population growth. Any economy is
termed developed is its population is non-
discriminated and just. By reducing discrimination
between gender and class and ensuring development
of the whole population instead of a given segment
of society would eliminate the challenge of
population growth for once.
2. Easy and Cheap availability of
Contraceptives
Ensuring that people have easy and cheap access to
contraception tools will help avoiding cases of
unwanted pregnancies and births. Every state
owned hospital should be made to provide cheaply
efficient birth control medicines or surgeries since
poor people have neither the means not awareness
to use contraception. Use of condoms and
contraceptives must be advertised and promoted
along with ensuring cheap and ready access to
these. Contraceptives do not only prove to be an
important population control measure but also
prevents spreading of sexually transmitted diseases
like AIDS thus ensuring small healthy families.
3. Providing Incentives
Incentives have proved to be an efficient policy
measure in combating most development issues
including population. Providing a health,
educational or even financial incentive can be a
highly effective population measure. There are
certain incentive policies like paying certain some of
money to people with not more than two kids or
free or discounted education for single child etc.
which are in place in most developing countries
facing population related challenges and has also
proved to be a useful measure.
4. Spread Awareness-People need to be told and
made to understand the consequences of having
too many children. Government and non-
government institutions can carry awareness
campaigns informing people how they will be
unable to provide good nutrition, education or
medical facilities to their children if they have too
many. Population is also a reason for illiteracy and
diseases and malnutrition and the negative effects
of it are required to be communicated to the
general public to expand their reasoning and
understanding.
5. Women Empowerment-In most developing
countries, the women folks are not considered
equivalent to men in terms of force and might. Such
opinions are extremely common in Islamic countries
and even India and Bangladesh. Gender
discrimination is a major reason for population
growth. People keep giving birth to kids in order to
have more sons than daughters. Empowering
woman with a say in matters concerning them like
child birth and educating them to fight against
discrimination will ensure a healthy and aware
society.
6.Eradicate Poverty-Why most poor countries
have highest population growth instead of rich
ones. Poverty has a direct relation to the population
growth. In developing countries of Asia and Africa,
child labor, slave trading and human trafficking is
highly prevalent. African countries for example still
have maximum reporting of slave trading though
trading of humans is legally banned everywhere in
the world. People give birth to kids and sell them to
rich people who in turn employ these kids in various
laborious and unethical tasks. If not sell, these
parents force their kids to beg or work at a very
tender so as to earn some extra money for the
family. These people believe that more kids mean
more hands for
begging and work and thus more money. Without
concrete measures for growth and poverty
eradication, other methods of population control
may prove to be ineffective.
7.Education-Education forms the backbone of an
individual and economy. Once educated people
know and understand the harms which a high
population growth rate possesses. Education,
especially women education, can work wonders in
controlling population. An educated man and
woman can readily understand the benefits of a
small family. Without sufficient education most
measures like awareness campaigns and women
empowerment will prove to be insufficient and
pointless.
OVERPOPULATION AS MACRO
ECONOMY PROBLEM
The high rate of growth of population on the top of
existing massive population hampers the economic
development in India in the following ways:

 In India food supply is inadequate, and one-third

of the populations are underfed. During the first
15 years of planning food production per head
declined from 12.8 oz, to 12.4 oz. This trend has
not improved much in spite of green revolution.
 The explosive rate of growth of population has
also greatly aggravated the unemployment
problem in India. Unemployment and under-
employment in rural and urban areas are a
serious headache for the economic planners. In
India about 45 million people are registered
unemployed. These people do not make any
addition to the production. But they have to be
fed by the community all the time. The natural
resources are not harnessed.
 One of the far-reaching results of the ever
increasing population is that it reduces the saving
and investment of the country. The average
 annual per capita income is very low. The
purchasing power of the people is extremely
poor. The nation income leaves no margin for
saving. It may be said that only about 20% of the
national income is invested in the economy.
Shortage of saving lies at the root of capital
deficiency. An alarming rate of population
growth makes it very difficult to step up the rate
of saving.
 There is also high proportion of unproductive
population. In 1961, 57 percent of the population
were unproductive consumers. In 1991 this
percentage has gone up to 62.4 percent.
 The growth of population also affects the
standard of living of the people. In India one-
third of the people live below the subsistence
level.
 Women in India do not participate in the
productive activity for a long time due to
frequent maternity.
Hence, the explosive rate of growth of population
adversely affects the pace of economic progress in
India. The population pressure worsens of
unemployment problems, keeps down the per capita
real income and the country’s national income,
aggravates the supply of food grains and also
militates against capital formation.

CONCLUSION OF THE REPORT.

Since India is overpopulated, it has a huge effect on
the environment and the economy of the country.
There’s going to be more unemployment and
scarcity of resources. It’ll get harder to feed all those
people, since there aren’t enough resources for all
the people. Intensive farming is going to be a
concept that’s going to get introduced, but it’s
extremely harmful towards the environment. If we
want to get rid of overpopulation, we must give all
the citizens better education on the sexual grounds
and create laws that forbid a family to have more
than one child. If all of that is put into action, then
that might be the solution to stop the birthrate from
surpassing the
deathrate, which has already happened, but there’s
still a way back.

Bibliography
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
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A SPECIAL THANKS TO ALL THIS

ARTICLES,THIS PROJECT REPORT COULD NOT
BE POSSIBLE WITHOUT THEIR RESEARCH.