India is currently the second most populated country in the world with a population of 1.4 billion as of 1st January 2023. India accounts to around 17.7% of the world’s population and is set to become the most populated country in the world by year 2030. Before we dive into the issues with increasing population, it is important for us to first consider the advantages of it.
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Merits of having 1.4 Billion people
India is aiming to be a 5 Trillion economy and apart from the obvious math that more people = more workforce = more production of goods = more people paying taxes, the bigger opportunity that this size of population provides is the increased probability of new innovation in efficient ways to tackle resources & Energy generation issues, innovation in efficient ways to grow food, invention and discovery of better medical drugs, better machine & software. This can all lead to increased scale of return. The question here that we need to ask ourselves is whether our society, social structure and government schemes are aimed at training the human resource in better way or not?
Overpopulation threshold
The basic idea is related to the limit of natural resources available. Any species in an ecosystem can be categorized as overpopulated when the natural resources available in that ecosystem fails to provide for sustenance. The natural resources that are vital for human life sustainability includes land, food and water.
Other non-renewable resources such as natural gas, oil & Coal etc. can be replaced with renewable resources with advancement in technology, however, these three vital resources should be actively conserved. The imbalance between population and availability of vital resources can lead to depletion of quality of life. What will happen if the line is crossed?
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Issues with overpopulation
Despite being one of the most populated countries on earth, India is still a food surplus state and well within the threshold of overpopulation. However, we are still facing several problems that can be directly related to population. An important point to note here is that the problems listed below can be systematically handled and only more efforts in this direction can guarantee it.
Financial challenges
- No doubt, the increasing population places increasing pressure for demand of resources and infrastructure on an economy and the major areas where India faces economic challenges are
- Unemployment ratio
- Poverty
- Access to healthcare facilities
- Access to education
Environmental challenges
- All the major environmental issues can be linked to the increase in number of people in the world. India is no exception. Major issues are
- Air, water, land pollution
- Degrading underground water levels
- Water scarcity
- Severe air quality and many more.
All these results are definitely linked to population, however, there solutions are within reach. India can certainly achieve sustainable development and sustainable population level if we direct our efforts towards resolving issues like:
- Poor waste management
- Lack of political will
- Lack of environmental awareness
- Lack of infrastructure
