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India will have 1.6 bn people by 2050: expert

Wednesday, 05 March 2003, 00:00 Hrs

AHMEDABAD: India's population will reach 1.6 billion by 2050 and it will bring in its wake serious challenges as well as benefits, says a British expert.

"India's coming demographic expansion will pose some serious challenges -- for example, political, administrative and environmental," said Tim Dyson, professor of Population Studies at the London School of Economics.

He was here to deliver a lecture on "India's Population: Past, Present and Future". The lecture was part of The Pravin Visaria Public Lecture organised by the Gujarat Institute of Development Research.

Dyson put emphasis on popularising the use of contraception to control the population boom.

"The importance of extending and supporting the 'right to choose' in contraception -- especially in the northern states of the country -- cannot be underplayed.

"Turning to mortality, despite the persistence of substantial poverty and major health problems, it seems likely that the average life expectation will continue to rise during the medium term future, although whether levels of morbidity will improve commensurately is another matter.

"That said, the HIV/AIDS situation seems likely to get worse and it deserves the very closest attention."

However, Dyson maintained that India's coming demographic changes carry some significant benefits too. Thus, there is a potential demographic bonus.

Perhaps even more important is the fact that over the long run fertility decline is likely to help transform the lives of Indian women - as they become more and more liberated from lives that are dominated by childbearing and associated concerns of the domestic domain.

"Finally, urbanisation is a process, which will certainly continue; and, despite its associated problems, it too is generally a 'good thing.' For example, we have noted that much more favourable levels of mortality prevail in the urban sector.

"Urban living holds out prospects for economies of scale. Indeed, in my view, urbanisation is absolutely central to what constitutes the modern process of development," he stated.

Dyson said by 2026, roughly 36 percent of India's population will be living in the urban sector.

"I also estimate that there will be nearly 70 million plus cities by that time. However, these estimates assume that there will be no major change in the definitions and practices which are used to classify places as urban.

"Yet, it seems likely that the extent to which areas are classed as urban will be broadened in the future. Of course, if this happens then the 'urban' population will be larger still, and there will be even more million- plus cities," he said.

Dyson was president of the British Society for Population Studies, and in 1997 he addressed the Oxford Farming Conference. His main areas of research have been on demographic time series, interactions between populations and their food supplies, global food prospects, and the past, present and future population of the Indian subcontinent.

His most recent book - co-edited with Cormac O' Gr'ada - is "Famine Demography" published by Oxford University Press in 2002.

Source: IANS

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