By Anil Raturi (Retd IPS)
In her Union Budget 2025-26 speech, the Finance Minister of India announced that five “Centres of Excellence in Skill Development ” will be set up in the country. The government’s allocation for Skill Development and Education has also been significantly raised compared to the previous financial year. The overall budget of the skill ministry has gone up from Rs 3,241 crore in the RE of FY25 to Rs 6,017 crore in the FY26. These are wise steps in the appropriate direction.
In 2023, India became the most populous nation in the world, relegating China (leading till then) to the second place.
In the ancient period, in the absence of modern developments in nutritional and medical facilities, human life span was short. Death of the mother or child or both during childbirth was common. Death due to various diseases, famines or war was also rampant.
Families and societies used to be desperate to increase their population. It was perhaps in such circumstances that the Arab phrase used for blessing, “may your tribe multiply”, originated.
The population of the world in 1 CE was just about 300 million (about 20% of today’s Indian population!).
It took 17 centuries for it to double and become 600 million in 1700 CE. In the next century, it reached the figure of a billion for the first time!
Since then, improvement in health and nutritional facilities (particularly in the last century) has made the global population swell eightfold to a figure of 8.2 billion today!
In the 18th century, Malthus postulated that population growth would always outpace food production, leading to famine, war, and poverty.
After the Second World War, with the coming of the “baby boomers” generation, some experts began airing apprehensions about an impending population explosion.
Former Stanford University professor Paul R Ehrlich, in his book “The Population Bomb” (1968) seemed to echo Malthus.
Meanwhile, the industrialised nations of the West underwent a socio-economic transformation. Due to the general improvement in the quality of life in these societies, death rates declined. As parents aspired to provide a good education to their children, families became smaller.
As a result, the birth rate declined too. It entailed what scholars of demographics term as a phase of “Demographic Transition”.
However, in the underdeveloped third world, the situation was different. In many of these countries, the introduction of modern medicines reduced the death rates while their birth rates continued to rise.
India and China, during the 1950-60 decades, were confronting this challenge and were struggling to feed their burgeoning populations.
“Population Explosion” was a common phrase in the India of the 1960s. A situation arose wherein, to prevent large-scale hunger, the Government of India was compelled to beg the US government for food.
In due course, Norman Borlaug’s “dwarf” variety of wheat and scientific intensive farming ushered in the “Green Revolution” in India, paving the way for its food security.
Ancient human societies had feared extinction in the face of death and disease. For them, more children had been a blessing.
Post Second World War, ironically, the Third World was confronting a “population explosion”!
More children meant more poverty!
During the 1970s, the Government of India embarked upon a nationwide programme of family planning in order to curb the birth rates. The premise was that a small family could provide a better quality of life to its offspring.
With the same objective, China, in 1979, too, came up with its “one child” policy.
The world has changed in the last few decades. It has become technologically interconnected in a manner that is unprecedented.
We now live in what is called a “global village”.
Technological advancements now rapidly percolate to all corners of the world. This has accelerated the economic growth of many developing countries. Large populations, if appropriately skilled, can become a “demographic dividend”.
The world witnessed the miraculous rise of Chinese economic power. Under Deng Xiaoping, China opened up its economy in 1978. Since then, it grew at a formidable rate for more than three decades, uplifting millions of its people out of poverty. Today, it has the highest forex reserves in the world!
Its achievement was possible to a large extent because of what is called the “demographic dividend”. From 1980s to mid 2010s, China had the largest working age population (15–64 age group) in the world. This meant that the number of dependants was lesser than the number of earners in society!
However, off late, due to its “one child ” policy, the Chinese birth rates have drastically declined to less than 2.1! (TFR – Total Fertility Rate – 1.02 in 2024)
Recently, Elon Musk warned that the trend of declining world population is the greatest threat to human civilisation! He said that if such trends continue then, by 2100, economic and technological decline for human societies is in the offing!
The Indian birth rate or TFR has also significantly declined from 6.2 in 1950 to 2.03 in 2024. However its working age population has been increasing since 2005. Experts predict that it will continue to have a favourable working age population ratio up to 2056! It is poised to reap the fruits of the “Demographic Dividend”.
India is already the fourth largest economy in the world and is rapidly growing.
Recognising the opportunity, the Indian government has embarked upon a programme of skill development to empower its human resources.
An appropriately skilled population can provide it the much needed “Demographic Dividend” – an opportunity for India to eradicate its poverty and become a developed nation.
However, any inefficiency in skilling its people could also convert the “demographic dividend” into a “Demographic Disaster”!
(Anil Raturi is a retired IPS officer and former DGP, Uttarakhand)
