Population Growth in India

Population growth in India during the twentieth century can be chartered and classified into four distinct phases as follows:

The story of population growth in India is fairly in tune with the classical theory of demographic transition. During most of the nineteenth century, India witnessed a fluctuating but ultimately more or less a stagnant growth of population, which drifted into the twentieth century until 1921. Thereafter, India 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 increased by a whopping 180.6 million during the decade 1991 - 2001. 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. While 27.9 million more people were added between the decade 1981 - 1991 than between 1971 - 1981, this number decline to 17.6 million for the decades between 1981 - 1991 and 1991 - 2001. This implies that although India continues to grow in size, its pace of net addition is on the decrease.

The percentage decadal growth during 1991 - 2001 has registered the sharpest decline since independence. It has declined from 23.86% for 1981 - 1991 to 21.34 percent for the period 1991 - 2001, a decrease of 2.52%. The average exponential growth rate for the corresponding period declined from 2.14% per annum to 1.93% per annum.