Demographers have invented various terms to understand, reconcile and rethink the population explosion in India. That a country touching the one billion mark and giving a tough competition to china in terms of population growth is by now a very well known fact. But what matters is the difference between optimization of this population by China through various policies and methodologies while we are still fighting our best to stabilize our population explosion.
The 1991 census showed an increased of 160 million in the past decade with birth rate declining, nevertheless its place and distribution being slow and uneven and that too with signification regional and state variations. In the beginning it was population seemed to be militating against the objective itself. Then it was family welfare and population stabilization. This has certainly been a more successful venture.
Even since the national family, planning programme was launched in the 50s, the mortality has fallen by nearly two thirds fertility has gone down by about two fifth with life expectancy at birth almost doubling. Mortality and fertility were on even keel for many years stabilizing the growth rate of population around 2% per year in 1991. Serious efforts towards preventive family welfare programme through various methods, the country could achieve 60 % of its goal of replacement fertility with an average declining of 50% in the birth rate.
Notwithstanding the stabilization of population growth at two percentage during the intervening decades as well as the reduction rate in re productivity among women, the most powerful segment , namely young adults in the age group of 10 to 24 has an in built structure which fuels population growth . Almost 25% of the population falls in theirs age group. That means educating optimizing and channeling the enormous energy in this group holds the key for optimizing population growth. The word optimizing has a qualitative dimension compared to control or stabilization when used in the context of population. While control has a negative connotation, stabilization hinges upon futuristic idealization. However, optimization works at the ground reality encompassing the existing population at a specific reference time frame and the projected future growth rate, there by culminating towards a strategy for balancing the two.
Among the various options available to target the young adults orienting, guiding, counseling and nurturing them towards proper career both for education and job opportunities can contribute substantially for diverting their energy and hidden power towards creative and gainful opportunities in the job market. Additionally recreating the power of youth toward development activities involving overall welfare of the country and the people could act as a boost to this approach
