In global and regional context, Bangladesh population has drawn considerable attention of the social scientists, policy planners

and international organizations. In global context, Bangladesh is the seventh largest country in the world in population where 150 million people are virtually elbowing each other in a land that is but occupying only 3000th part of the worlds land space. Such a huge concentration of population in small land space cannot but draw ones attention. About 2.3 million people are currently being added to its existing population; and such pace will continue in the next one decade and a half, even if Bangladesh achieves 2- child family norm (i.e. TFR of 2.1 or NRR=1) in any time between 2015-2020. In regional context, South Asian countries including Bangladesh comprise worlds one-fourth population and contribute 24% to its annual increase of 80 million people. Therefore, focus on population increase lies in south Asia in which Bangladesh portion appears to be most volatile because of high population density, poor land-man ratio, slow economic growth, massive unemployment, huge working age population relative to the size of job market etc. What makes the situation even more horrifying for Bangladesh is that the country is poised to lose a good part of its territory to the rise in sea levels associated with global warming, while its very population increases at an unsustainable rate. During independence in 1971, the population of Bangladesh was about 75 million. After 37 years, its population is believed to have more than doubled. The current estimate of population growth in the country varies from 1.5 per cent to 2.0 per cent a year depending on whose assessment one pays attention to. For good measure, if one takes a middle ground and considers a growth rate of say 1.75 per cent a year, it would mean that Bangladesh population will double in the next 40 years, while at the lowest rate the doubling time would be 47 years. The population growth rate among the educated people in Bangladesh has come down by a considerable extent. But its growth rate among the underprivileged, who continue to constitute a big majority, is double the rate of the educated group. Since the poor people have no steady income (some practically live hand to mouth), they customarily want more children as security and support in old age. They are also apt to get married early and produce children that they can't educate or even support. The reduction, therefore, in population growth among educated people in the country is being more than compensated by the increase among the underprivileged. The other stark reality is that such a growth in population will not only put the future of Bangladesh at serious danger, it will indubitably have a profound impact on the rest of the world as well. There's an enormous pressure on the capital city, Dhaka. And that pressure is not abating as more and more people keep cramming into this over-crowded city every day. Moreover, living conditions in Dhaka are continually deteriorating because of lack of such basic amenities - like electricity and clean water. Dreadful circumstances are also mounting in other cities of the country. Above all, the invasion of government land is becoming common, even in rural areas.

Current population Scenario

In terms of Age Distribution and Growth Trend, a huge population of > 150 million squeezed in an area of 1, 34,000 sq km > giving rise to the population density of 1100 persons per sq km. > Current Man-land ratio of 1:14 decimals. Population is characterized by > a high proportion of young age population of below 15 years (40%) and > reproductive women, 15-49 years (39% of all women). > Population of 65 years and above represents about 4.0 percent of the total. The first two characteristics indicate the substantial growth potential of future population. The third characteristic indicates that unlike developed countries, our population is slowly aging. As life expectancy is gaining, the size of the elderly population will increase and thereby, increasing the dependency burden. In recent years, there has been tremendous improvement in some demographic parameters. For example, Infant mortality rate (IMR) was reduced to 52 in 2006 from 65/1000 live births in 2004. Under-5 mortality rate declined up to 65 from 88/1000 children under-5 during the same period. Total fertility rate (TFR) had declined to 2.7 in 2006-7 from 3.3 in 2000. Urban- rural difference in fertility is quite substantial. As expected, TFR for rural woman is 2.8 and that of urban woman is 2.4. Closely related to the decline in TFR is the increase in CPR . In 1975, TFR was 6.3, and CPR was 7.7(BFS, 1975). Since then, CPR has steadily increased up to 58% in 2004 followed by decline of 2% i.e. 56% in 2006 which was mostly in traditional methods having trivial impact on fertility. The percentage of modern method users continues upward trend.

Population Distribution
The 2001 Population Census revealed rural-urban population distribution was 77:23. In recent years, rural-urban migration has increased steadily. Expert opinion is that current rural urban population distribution is 73:27. Almost 85% of the rural migrants are absorbed in four main cities namely, Dhaka, Chittagong, Khulna and Rajshahi and thus overcrowding these cities, threatening the ecology and complicating the task of managing the urban life.

Implications of population rise

Population growth is thus a tremendous challenge for Bangladesh that must be addressed on a high priority basis. Without a practical solution to population growth, especially among the underprivileged, the country couldn't be expected to achieve a

meaningful economic expansion to avert future large scale poverty, thereby leading to an anarchical situation. In fact, a number of notable indications, such as the constant rioting in university campuses, unrelenting deadly confrontations in the political arena, the rise of fundamentalism, terrorist activities, and serious economic distress followed by general lawlessness and social unrest, do point to such eventuality. The recent unprecedented uprisings among the country's border guards in February 2009 in which nearly 60 senior army commanding officers were mercilessly murdered, and the new discovery of huge arms cache in a religious school compound in the secluded coastal area offer the most glaring examples of how the circumstances in Bangladesh are changing for the worse. Social scientists believe such episodes will escalate as the situation worsens. Climate change is already a reality of life. In Bangladesh, climate change is threatening the very existence of people's lives and livelihoods. Experts believe that the effects would be very severe here since Bangladesh's population growth is putting ever more pressure on its limited natural resources. With the depletion of its vital resources, such as fresh water, forests, and farmland that are considered most essential for the country's sustainability, population growth is undeniably contributing to serious environmental degradation in Bangladesh. Agricultural production, the use of land, and water distribution are among the biggest challenges that confront Bangladesh. Most of the country's land mass is close to the sea level, and about 40 per cent of its land is flooded under normal circumstances during the monsoon season. This situation is continually worsening since India's diversion of water in the dry season is causing the country's river system to fill up with silt and sediment, making the river system less able to handle the water load in the monsoon. Furthermore, when small shifts in the weather pattern intensify flooding in Bangladesh - as is happening more frequently in recent times - many people die and millions are left homeless. With the rise of the sea level because of global warming, the destructive effect of flooding is sure to increase. When coastal areas begin to submerge under water, people will have no alternative but to migrate to higher land. Indeed the process of migration from the shore area may have already begun, though in a subtle way, and will intensify as the situation worsens.

Prospects
As public health measures are likely to further improve, deaths decline particularly among the infants and thus, more babies will live to grow up. So a countrys population becomes more youthful as in the case now in Bangladesh. More young adults mean more births. Birth rate may decline further through family planning program efforts reinforced by non-family planning measures like female education, skill training, use of media etc. All these measures will eventually help create a conducive environment to reduce birth and death rates leading to population stabilization. A countrys growth potential is built in the age structure of its population. Currently our age structure is heavily Pyramidal with a large base of young age population.

Notwithstanding an elaborate and modestly persuasive family planning program, fertility reduction to replacement level may be difficult to achieve by 2016 unless far more vigorous efforts are made at the grass root level by the health and family planning workforce. Assuming that public and private sectors efforts in this respect shall continue and that public health measures will augment considerably to thwart the menace of deadly diseases, Bangladesh is quite likely to achieve an assumed demographic goal of NRR=1 by 2016. If the current pace of progress continues, life expectancy at birth is likely to increase any where between 68-70 years by 2016. A great deal of population momentum is coming from low income families, such as poor, ultra poor and other lower income groups who together comprise 50 percent of the society. These are the people among whom infant mortality and maternal mortality rates are the highest. Total fertility rate is twice as much of the upper, middle and high income groups. They are the ones who have very little access to education beyond primary, health care services and other benefits which government and society usually offer to the individuals. So if the goal of replacement level fertility is to be achieved any time in the next decade, our policies, programmes and resources should be directed towards their welfare. There are, however, some grounds for optimism. A large number of women want fewer children and the younger the women, the fewer they want. The recent surveys (BDHS 2007) of married women reveal that there is a considerable unmet demand. Meeting this demand is not restricted to modern methods of contraception; even traditional methods help plan family size as in some countries. But for this to happen, education, use of media, arousing peoples consciousness and democratizing social and political institutions at all levels to allow the hitherto neglected people to participate and involve themselves in all kinds of state sponsored development works are essential. If we can create an enabling environment through such processes and other civilized means, demographic momentum effect can be significantly reduced and the timing for population stabilization may be achieved by 2070 or even earlier. Some experts have advocated the concept of Compact Townships in Bangladesh as a potential means to avoid the concentration of population in major cities and to limit the pressure on farmland. Others believe that the country is growing by about 20 square kilometers annually, which should bring relief. But dismissing the idea of land growth, Atiq Rahman, a member of U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said, "The rate at which sediment is deposited and new land is created is much slower than the rate at which climate change and sea level rises are taking place".

Population Management strategies for meeting the challenge

To meet the challenge of population growth, Bangladesh could draw important lessons from the experience of other countries. For example, China has taken the most drastic measure - restricting the number of children per family to just one. China is in a unique position to adopt such a policy. Even though it has embraced a capitalist economy, its Communist Party continues to exercise total control over government policy. In pursuing its population policy, China has instituted a social security system

for the elderly. In a recent meeting of the Bangladesh Population Council, the local experts have openly discussed and stressed the need for adopting a China like population policy in order to contain the population explosion. But for a traditional society - like Bangladesh - where neither a viable social security system nor a strong authoritarian government exists, the Chinese policy of one child per family would be hard to implement.

Declining fertility and mortality will not stop population from growing even if Bangladesh achieves 2-child family norm by 2016. Managing the already huge and still growing populations on small land space shall be the major responsibility of all incoming Governments of Bangladesh. If future leadership and the Government remain oblivious of this responsibility, both the country and people will suffer a lot. Managing population will require some deliberate planned actions, such as: Balanced distribution of rural-urban migrants:

Managing urban population in four big cities, namely, Dhaka, Chittagong and Khulna shall be one of the major tasks of future Governments in Bangladesh. At present, urban-rural population distribution, as noted earlier is 27:73. Among the rural migrants, about 80.0 percent are absorbed in these these cities and the rest in the remaining 60 district towns of the country. If the population of these four cities shall be doubled in the next 14-23 years, it will almost paralyze the city life. More schools, more spacious roads and public transportation facilities, more supply of gas, electricity, pure water etc are to be afforded for the city dwellers. All these shall require 15-17 times larger investments than the Governments current spending. Besides, law and order situation will deteriorate to such an extent that it may frequently destabilize the Government. As a part of Governments population management strategy in urban area, Government may attempt to reverse the current trend through planned infrastructural development in remaining district Headquarters and selected Upazilas so as to upgrade them as the second tier modern cities and towns in a period of ten years. These emerging cities and towns should have

proper connectivity with big cities along with all modern facilities so that rural
migrants become attracted to go there for employment, business and education and eventually for settlement. education, business, industries, spacious roads, public transportation facilities etc. This kind of urban center economic growth in favor of peripheral cities and towns is desirable for balanced growth of urbanization and economic development. This scheme will create a significant employment and income opportunities for the disadvantaged people of the underdeveloped urban areas. Hence, rural migrants will be attracted to go there rather than coming to highly polluted mega city and port cities. As a result, current imbalance in rural migrants distribution between big cities and small cities shall narrow down and may ultimately take a reverse trend in a period of ten years from hence. It is assumed that 70% rural migrants may go to newly

emerging towns and the rest 30% may come to the big cities. This kind of shift may take time, but eventually it will happen, provided we pursue the above policy strategy. Relocation of industries from the cities:

One of the reasons for overcrowding, congestion and pollution is the location of many industries in the heart of the big cities and their adjoining areas. As a strategy for urban population management, and minimizing the urban pro urban problems, relocation of the industries to a suitably located distant place is necessary. Countries having problems similar to ours pursued this kind of policy strategy. South Korea is a case in example. Since 1980, it has been pursuing this policy to reduce population pressure in its capital Seoul and thus, it was able to reduce its congestion by at least, 20% percent. In order to materialize this strategic objective, Government needs to provide land at a cheaper rate and tax rebate to the affected industrialists together with other essential facilities like water, gas, and electricity, as well as connectivity with the Capital and Ports. Dhaka Metropolitan Development Plan (1995-2005):

The government is seriously considering giving approval to the Dhaka Metropolitan Development Plan (1995-2005) covering 1528 square kilometer. According to the plan, boundary of Dhaka city will be extended to Shitalakhya river, a part of Sonargaon thana, Meghna river in the east, Bongshi river in the west, Dhaleshwari rivers both in the west and south, and north boundary of Gazipur municipality. As per the plan, municipalities of Narayanganj, Tongi, Gazipur, Savar, Kadamrasul, Siddhirganj and Tarabo will be incorporated into Dhaka City Corporation. The government is planning to build several satellite towns under the plan and those will be implemented in phases. Hopefully, once the modernized land survey and management system are introduced, it would reduce people's sufferings. As part of a modernized land administration the land ministry would prepare a digital map of the entire country. Increasing peoples mobility:

Enhancing peoples mobility beyond the national boundary through their capacity development could be a worthwhile strategic option for population management and socio-economic development. Bangladesh has not yet fully explored this possibility. Bangladesh is extremely rich in human resources having vast stock of exportable surplus of professionals, technicians, skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled workers. For sheer necessity and craving for better living, about three million people of different skill-mix are currently working overseas, and remitting substantial part of their income to their families and thus, augmenting the countrys foreign exchange reserve. But Bangladeshs contribution of workforce is still disproportionate to its population size and demand of the international market. In order to avail the opportunities which now exist, Bangladesh should have a planned action for increasing its production capacity in internationally marketable skill-mix, such as doctors, nurses, dental surgeons, various health technologies, engineers, architects as

well as technicians of different varieties. Fortunately, it has now considerable educational and training institutions; and many of the institutions, particularly those in the private sector needs significant improvement in terms of faculty development, physical space, equipment etc. Government should encourage the Banking Sector to come forward to invest significantly in human resources production sector at a nominal rate of interest. In fact, this strategic approach calls for serious rethinking of the Government, Management of all HRD institutions and the Bankers community. If the people can go abroad for employment, international trade and education and stay there for several years, many of them will tend to stay there eventually. If not all, at least, some of them and their children may not return to their place of origin. Thus, in one generation or a little later, enhancing mobility through capacity development will have beneficial impact on the size of countrys population. Capacity development:

Bangladesh, although an agricultural country, cannot accommodate its growing population in this sector. To generate employment opportunities for the surplus workforce, it has emphasized industrialization. However, there is dearth of skilled manpower in Bangladesh both in technical and management areas. The focus is on the development of general work skills, personnel skills, and financial management. Development in these areas is essential for the industrial development of Bangladesh. The open of the industrial sector for private investment increased the need for skilled manpower tremendously in Bangladesh. Government, NGO and other private organizations are working to develop human resources to ensure that Bangladesh can compete in local and global markets. Academicians, researchers, the Government, decision-makers, and others planners and administrators agree that human resources are the most vital factor in the industrial development of Bangladesh. Formal training programs (business education, technical education, technical training, vocational training and other training programs) will play a key role in the development of its human resources. All HRD institutions need to be strengthened; and private-public-development partners collaboration for enhanced investment need to be ensured. For this, a high priority should be given to human resources development (HRD). Educating the population on Family Welfare: Bangladesh's population situation is surely worsening day by day. In order to avoid dire consequences, the country ought to consider vigorously enforcing its law of minimum age for marriage. At the same time it must discourage people from getting married without a steady income, mandate prospective brides and grooms to attend a prescribed class on family planning before marriage, and also institute some kind of social security system for the elderly. These themes must be brought to the uneducated rural people in innovative ways. For example, a simple video presentation on sexuality, health, hygiene, child bearing, family planning, and birth control with a question and answer session might be useful for them. Also, considering the overall poverty level of the

people, special emphasis should be given to inexpensive and relatively safe methods of birth control - like the timely withdrawal method (medically described as coitus interruptus). This form of birth control might even be more acceptable to religious leaders. Besides, traditional birth control pills are not free from side-effect, which is an impediment. Educating women as well as men on the implications of their action or inaction on family matters would clearly be the best way to achieve not only the desired goal of population stabilisation, but also basic healthcare of the child that Bangladesh so desperately needs and is trying to achieve. Multi Sectoral Involvement:

Since population cut across all sectors of economy, their involvement and participation in all population activities are, therefore, essential .Bangladesh Population Policy is un-equivocal on this issue and has made ample rooms for their participation. But the ground reality is that they are yet not fully involved nor the National Population Council (NPC) has been made fully functional. The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare which provides secretariat support and stewardship needs to be fully tuned with the spirit of Bangladesh population policy. The sooner (NPC) it can be made fully functional and create enabling environment for other Ministries to play their respective role as envisaged in the national population policy, the better for the nation. Also given the demographic development and the urgency of the situation, Bangladesh Planning Commission may wish to consider the aforesaid population management strategies, while designing its planning and development strategies.
Women Empowerment:

Although current and proposed population policies and programmes have started addressing the empowerment of women, there are still some important gaps. The draft NPP emphasizes empowering women through creating income-generating opportunities, eliminating violence, and promoting male involvement. The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MOHFW) intended to provide reproductive health education, vocational training, and micro-credit opportunities for womens programmes under the supervision of the Bangladesh Rural Development Board, Social Welfare Directorate, and Womens Affair Department respectively. The Ministry of Education planned to support scholarship programmes to retain girls in school beyond the secondary level (GOB, 1997), and the Ministries of Social Welfare, Women and Children Affairs, Youth and Sports, and Cultural Affairs were going to continue several womens development programmes. (GOB, 1997)

Obligatory help
Achieving population stabilisation in Bangladesh through mass education, however, would be an overwhelming challenge for the government to meet. Obviously, the country lacks the necessary resources for such a massive undertaking. The international community has enormous obligations to help Bangladesh to achieve stability. For one, the country is an innocent victim of the effect of global

warming that is mainly caused by carbon emissions in the industrialised nations. And second, in addition to the huge humanitarian concern, if Bangladesh were to turn into a failed state as a result of its population explosion it would impact the rest of the world in a very negative way. Somalia would be a good example of the effect of a failed state. There are thousands of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) currently operating in Bangladesh. These NGOs are no doubt influencing the lives of many poor people. The notion of family planning for the poor is a great cause in that it would bring stability to an unstable situation and help improve the depressed condition sooner. By taking a unified stand on educating the public on family planning, the NGOs could, therefore, contribute even more in advancing the cause of humanity in Bangladesh. Expatriate Bangladeshis are also morally obligated to come forward in innovative ways to help meet this great challenge.

Conclusion
The picture of day-to-day and even year-to-year performance of the economy of Bangladesh is a mixture of accomplishment and failure, not significantly different from that of the majority of poor Third World countries. The government and people of Bangladesh are entitled to take some pride in the degree of success they have achieved since independence, especially when one contrasts their success with the gloomy forecasts of economists and international experts. The international donor community, led by the World Bank, similarly can be proud of the role it has played in assisting this "largest poorest" nation to become a respected member of the family of nations.
The well being of people can be affected by the policies regarding population growth. Policies can have devastating or constructive effects. Sometimes it is the absence of population policy that causes negative results, but other times it is the continuation of restrictive policies that directly influence health outcomes. Hopefully, the Government of Bangladesh will take up measures that turn the population burden into gift, for our country as also for the rest of the world.

Reference:

Bangladeshs Population Policy:Emerging Issues and Future Agenda - CPDUNFPA Paper Series 23

Bangladesh Population: Prospects and Problems by Mohammed A. Mabud

PhD,Department of Life Sciences, North South University Dhaka ,December 15, 2008

Development of Human Resources in Bangladesh: An Analysis of Institutional

Supports by Mohammad Shamsuddoha University of Chittagong & Mst. Dilruba Khanam Chittagong University.

The Financial Express The Daily Star Bangladesh Economy Internet