Since the middle of the 20thcentury, developing countries like India have been facing the problem of unsustainable population growth that had placed a lot of pressure on their development pattern and prosperity. So the government came up with the national population policy 1976

National population policy 1976:-

• Government of India introduced first National Population Policy in 1976, which focussed on reducing birth rate, lowering infant mortality rate and improving standard of life.
• In 1976, the government of India came up with its first National Population policy. The policy came up with a number of measures to arrest the population growth.
• Some of the measures are:
  1. Increasing the minimum legal age of marriage for girls and boys to 18 and 21 respectively.
  2. Monetary incentives for birth control.
  3. Improving the literacy levels of females both through the formal and non-formal channels.
  4. Population was made as a factor for sharing central resources with that of the states. Linking 8% of the central assistance to the State Plans by weighing the performance of the states in the family welfare programmes.
  5. Popularise family welfare programmes by using all forms of media.
  6. Inculcating population education into the formal education system.

Significance:-

• The National Population Policy, 1976 was completely different from the earlier policies. It was earlier believed that development and education would themselves restrict the rate of population growth, while the government’s own programme was restricted to family planning, by way of motivating people to accept family planning and providing clinical facilities and other services to its acceptors. This thinking changed due to the policy 1976.
• The 1976 policy noted that  to wait for education and economic development to bring out a drop in fertility is not a practical solution. The very increase in population makes economic development slow and more difficult to achieve. The time factor is so pressing, and the population growth so formidable, that we have to get out of the vicious circle through a direct assault upon this problem as a national commitment.
• The erstwhile BIMARU states of Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, and Odisha together with Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Assam, comprising 261 districts and a little less than 50% of the country’s population received focused attention for the first time and their demographic indicators began to be monitored relentlessly.

Issues arising out of population policy:-

• Population could not be controlled:- India’s national population policies have failed to achieve their objectives as we remain world’s second largest populated country. The population of India in 1951 was 35 crore, but by 2011, it had increased to 121 crore.
• NPP have a narrow perspective, give much importance to contraception and sterilisation. The basic prerequisite of meaningfully controlling population include poverty alleviation, improving the standards of living and the spread of education.
• On national scale the policy was not publicized and failed to generate mass support in favour of population control.
• India had insufficient infrastructure owing to the lack of trained staff, and limited use or misuse of the equipment for population control resulted in failure of the policy.
• The use of coercion during the Emergency (1976-77) caused a serious resentment among the masses. This made the very NPP itself very unpopular.
• The objectives of the policy were met with only limited success as infant mortality rate is still high.
• The statement of the policy of 1976 was neither discussed nor adopted.

Way forward:-

• There is a need for population policy to address the skewed female and child sex ratio which is spreading from urban into rural areas.
• A new population policy must address issue of migration:-
  1. The Census 2011 has given the picture of interstate and intrastate migration triggered by employment, business, education, marriage and other variables. Unplanned migration to the metros and large cities also puts pressure on the infrastructure, housing and water availability.
  2. If this is factored into of the population policy, it would make for more foresight and greater coordination, and avoid the inevitable outcome of mushrooming slums and unplanned habitations.
• Ageing factor :-
  1. The growing population of the elderly and the increase in life expectancy accompanied by chronic diseases have the potential to deflect resources from the primary task of providing education, skill development and increasing employability.
  2. The business opportunity to match the growing needs of this population cohort after factoring in their growing disability needs to be a part of the population policy.

Conclusion:-

A population policy that protects our demographic assets while preparing for difficult challenges that lie ahead will protect future generations from catastrophic consequences.