Essay, Paragraph or Speech on “Indian Census” Complete Essay, Speech for Class 10, Class 12 and Graduation and other classes.

Indian Census 

The estimated global population in 2000 was 6055 million. However in the past the growth of world population was not uniform. In 1830, the total population of the world was one billion which was doubled in 1930 with the time of 100 years. By 1960, again the world population was increased by 1 billion. The time span for increasing total population by 1 billion rapidly became shorter and shorter. The next addition of one billion in total population was made within much shorter period of time i.e. 1960-1975. In 1987 the world population crossed the work of 5 billion and this time the addition 1 billion was made only within 12 years. The last child in the mob of 5 billion people was born on 11th July 1987 in Yugoslavia.

Indian population at 0.80 hours of 1st march 2001 stood at 1,0270 comprising 531277078 males and 495738169 females. Thus India became only the second country in the world after china to cross the one billion mark. India accounts for a meagre 2.4 percent of world surface area of 135.79 million square yet it supports and sustains whopping 16.7 per cent of the world population. It is now estimated that by 2050 India will most likely over-take China to become the most populous country on the earth.

Census of India 2001 was presented by the Registrar General of Census Commissioner of India Jayant Kumar Banthia. The 2001 census also made an attempt to get data on disabled persons.

 Census was postponed in district of Kutch, Rajkot and Jamnagar as a consequence of devastating earthquake.

Population Growth—India’s population growth during the 20’h century can be classified into four distinct phases as follows 1901-1921 : Stagnant population, 1921-1951: Steady growth. 1951-1981 : Rapid high growth, 1981-2001 : High growth with definite signs of slowing down.

The story of population growth in India is fairly in time with the classical theory of demographic transition . During most of the nineteenth century India witnessed a fluctuating but ultimately more less a stagnant growth of population, which drifted in to the twentieth century until 1921. Thereafter the country passed through successively all the phases of demographic transition and is now widely believed to have entered the fifth phase, usually characterized by rapidly declining fertility.

In absolute terms, the population of India has increased by a whopping 1806 million during the decade 1991-2001. The absolute addition to the population in the decade 1991-2001 is more than the estimated population of Brazil, the fifth most populous country in the world. Although the net addition in population during each decade has increased consistently, the change in net addition has shown a steady declining trend over the decades starting from 1961.

The percentage decadal growth during 1991-2001 has registered the sharpest decline since independence. It has declined from 23.86 percent for 1981-1991 to 21.34 percent for the period 1991-2001. The average exponential growth rate for the corresponding period declined from 2.14 percent per annum to 1.93 per cent per annum. The annual exponential growth rate of food grain production during 1991-2000 was 1.9 per cent which just matched the population growth of Uttar Padesh the most populous state in the country with more than 166 million people living here, which is more than the population of Pakistan the sixth most populous country in the world. Nineteen states in the country now have a population of over a ten million.

Almost half of the country’s population lives in five states, namely Uttar Preadesh, Maharastra, Bihar, West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh. While Uttar Preadesh and Maharastra have held on to the first two positions in terms of the number of persons in 2001, as compared to 1991, Bihar has moved on to take the third position from its fifth position pushing West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh now to the fourth and fifth spots respectively.

It took four decades even for Kerala to reach a decade! growth of less than ten percent from a high growth rate of 25.29 per cent during 1961-71. Tamil Nadu also took forty years to reduce its growth from a high of 22.30 percent during 1961-1971 to 11.19 percent during 1991-2001. The growth rate in Bihar has shown an unpward swing during 1991 now at a level when Kerala and Tamil Nadu’ were forty years ago. Andhra Pradesh however has apparently shown an impressive fall in decadal growth rate by over ten percentage points within a short span of a decade.

The percentage decadal growth in population in the inter censal period in 1991-2001 varied from a low of 9.42 in Kerala to very high 64.41 in Nagaland. Delhi with 46.31 percent, Chandigarh with 40.33 and Sikkim with 32.98 registered very high growth while the small Union Territories of Dadra and Nagar Havelli and Daman and Diu also registered very high growth. In addition to Kerala two other major states in Southern India viz. Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh registered low growth rates during 1991-2001.

The percentage decadal growth have declined during the census decade 1991-2001 except Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Sikkim, Nagaland, Manipur, Gujrat, Daman and Diu and Dadra and Nagara Havelli. These states and Union Territories that have shown increases in percent decadal growth togethers constitute about thirty two percent of India’s populations.

In fact, among the major states Andhra Pradesh has registered the sharp drop of 16.33 percentage points during the said period followed by Chhattisgarh (7.67) and West Bengal (6.89). In India, the proportion of children in the age group 0-6 decreased from 17.94% in 1991 to 15.42 in 2001. In case of males percentage dropped by 2.3 points and for the females by 2.76 points.

Density of Population-The population density of India in 2001 was 324 per square kilometer which means that 324 people live in a square kilometer area in the country than the number that lived a decade ago. At the beginning of the twentieth century i.e. in 1901 the density of India was low this steadily increased to reach 324 in 2001. Due to difference in climatic conditions, availability of resources etc. the states and UTs of our country largely varied in terms of density. It varied from 13 persons per sq. k.m. in Arunachal Pradesh to 9294 in Delhi. The states of West Bengal, Bihar, Kerala, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Haryana, Goa, Assam and Jharkhand have visualised the density above the national average, all the UTs except Andman & Nicobar are above the national average density level Jammu and Kashmir, Sikkim, Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh have the density level below 100.

Among major states, West Bengal is still the most populated, where population density has gone up from 767 in 1991 to 904 in 2001. However major states Bihar is now the second highest density populated state pushing Kerala to the third spot in terms of ranking. Similarly Punjab and Tamil Nadu have interchanged their related position to the 10’h and 11th rank respectively in 1991.

The Eastern region (Bihar, Sikkim, West Bengal, Jharkhand, Orissa, Andman and Nicobar Islands) has the highest density of 525 P.S.K and the North region (J & K, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Chandigarh, Haryana, Delhi and Rajasthan). The lowest of 223 PSK eastern region is followed by central region and western region respectively.

Sex Composition -In the year 2000, the world had 986, females against 1000 males. Except Indonesia other Asian countries show low sex rates.

According to the census of India in 2001 the sex ratio stands at 933 for the country as a whole. Since 1901, barring some hiccups it has shown a long term declining trend. The sex ratio at the beginning of the twentieth century was 972 which showed continuous decline until 1941. In 1951, there was a marginal increase of one point, but thereafter it again dropped for two successive decades to reach 930 in 1971. Therefore it has fluctuated marginally around 930 in successive census. In 1901 there were eleven states and UTs that had the sex ratio of more than 900. Among these, except Kerala, all other have shown a downward slide. The major states that are largely responsible for the decline in the overall sex ratios in India is Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa, Chattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Gujrat, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu. Haryana and Andhra Pradesh and Karanatka are the states where the sex ratio has remained more or less stagnant. In west Bengal it declined sharply from 1901 to 1941 and then made a gradual tern around on the upward path to reach 934 in 2001.