Population in India - Is it Good or Bad for the 5th Largest Economy? Submission 2

Population in India, a curse or boon? India, with a population of almost 1.42 billion is already the 2nd most populous country in the world. It has already overtaken the former ruler of the world, the Great Britain (UK), and claimed the position of the 5th largest ecomony in the world. According to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), "At current prices and exchange rates, therefore, India will be a USD 3.7 trillion economy in 2023, maintaining its lead over the UK as the fifth largest economy of the world." As the upcoming Superpower, India looks forward to develope every sector and increase its contibution to the global commerce. China, being the most populous country in the world with a population of almost 1.46 billion, has been the "sweet poison" for all the countries around the globe, has proclaimed itself as the next world leader and is the toughest competitior to India. Over the decades, China, under the dictatorship of Xi Jinping has gained extreme dependence most of the countries, maintaing its prodigious position in the world trade, being the leader of almost every sector, feels threatened by India. The whole world amits that India has the potential to be a superpower in the upcoming decades, be it our formal rulers - UK, China, or even the current superpower the USA. Despite all these appreciations by the current world leaders, in India's sight, there lies few obstacles which might hinder the speed of the country's growth. One of these obstacles is Population, which is a very famous topic of discussion among the Indians themselves. Indians feel that the uncontrolled growth of population is a threat to our economic well-being. Mention the problem of poverty or the lack of basic necessities, the excuse : “it’s just not possible to provide services to teeming millions,” is a given. The fact is overlooked that bigger population means more consumers, more workers to work in factories, more soldiers to fight on the borders and contribution of great indian minds to the growing tech sector. After all, gross domestic product (GDP) is nothing but the goods and services produced and consumed by the citizens of a nation. More the citizens, more is the production of goods and services, more is the consumption, and more is the consumption. Thus contributing to the growth of GDP and a direct boost to the development of any country. You dont need to be an economist to understand this, its already visible in cases of the 1st and 2nd most populous countries of the world, i.e., China and India, that these countries being highest in population are the largest producers of most of the food grains and yet the thought that growing population will cause more femines in the country sustains in the empty minds. By the example given above it can be clearly stated that the growing population can be no hinderance to the proper feeding of citizens of a country and neither can it cause famines. Another threat felt by the common public is their opinion on high population of cities. According to them, cities are better with less population - less crowded roads, less crowded markets, cheaper house rends and lands, less pollution. This is another condemned arguement. Arent the advocated of immensely populated cities agruing against their own economic well-being? In truth, cities are sparcely populated not because it always been dwelled like that but rather it is because the businesses and the economy itself demands it. You dont have to be an economist or the owner of any leading company to understand this, just think from a company's perspective. Would you want to open the headquaters or main offices of your company in a less crowded place, where there is lack of not only the consumers but also the most import thing to run any company or business - the workforce, the labours that the enterprise demans is itself not available in the city. The market is itself so crowdless that neither there are workers to help produce the goods or services, nor there are consumers to pay you for your services. Without any use of proxility, it is obvious that you wont take such a known risk and would rather choose to open the headquarter or the key brach of your company in better urbanised cities where the market is surplous of consumers and you are free to make whatever profits you want. In fact, the very truth is, it is not the workers initially settled in the urbanised areas, rather it is the fact that they are attracted by the vacancies in the big players of markets. It is the enterprises that attract the job seekers, and thus starting a virtuous cycle where a bigger and denser city attracts more business, which in turn attracts jobs seekers making the city bigger over time even at the cost of surrounding towns and villages. Through this cycle, even the nearby remote areas with less populations experience urbanisation and gret development which is another positive aspect of densely polulated cities. Now we know why states like Maharashtra, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal are economically better off than their less urbanised cousins like Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa and Rajasthan. So now, the most significant question asked is, what is the problem? If the cause of femines and the density of cities is not the issue, then what actually is the hinderance to the grown of a nation in terms of population? It is the availability of skilled labours. The nation, including any existing or upcoming business enterprise or any growing startup demans for skilled employees/skilled citizens. This is the real problems faced by the country. It is true that the availability of large work force, and a market of a billion consumers is surely profitabble, but without skilled workers, how is any company to be making well suited goods or provide quality and quantity to the markets? Even the consumers need money to buy the good or the service, where do they get this money from? - by working as labours in the same enterprises. If the labours are not skilled enough then the quality or quantity of the goods and services wont be good enough for the consumers to pay their hard earned money for, resulting in company suffering heavy loses and firing employees which are also the consumers of other goods and services and they now have no money to buy the services. This starts another virtuous cycle - the company's unskilled emoplyees cause the company to suffer loses and be forced to fire them, now the employees have to money to spend as consumers which cause loss to other company and so on, thus contributing to the cause of recession in a country. Okay, the problem is understood, but why cant India produce skilled labours? Afterall, ancient india has produced the smartest minds - Aryabhatta, Chanakya, Swami Vivekananda, Ramanujan. Even the chief executive officiers (CEOs) of most of the market leaders in the global market are indians - Sundar Pichai (ceo of google), Satya Nadela (ceo os microsoft), Arvind Krishna (ceo of ibm), Salil Parekh (ceo of Infosys); and the list goes on and on. Then how can we say that India doesnt produce killed work force? Well, the answer lies not in the few exceptional cases but in the majorities. Look around you, how many people do you think deserve to be any ceo in any business? or leader in any sector? none. But- India produces the most number of engineers around the globe- then how? Well, it is high time we realise that throwing out degrees in the name of education is noway going to help the 5th largest economy to grow. Education is not something we can measure by counting the number of degrees an employee has, rather it is the skilled that the person has aquired in his study life. The truth is, India might have most number of engineers or doctors or whatever the profession is, but most of them lack skills and this can be changed only by a revolution in the education sector and not in the population. In the end, id like to sum up all my arguements and in conclusion expressed my opinion as - the growing propulation is no way a threat to the 5th largest emonomy of the world, rather it is a boon to the nation. Apart from compaining about any negative aspect, if we discuss about how to make use of the surplous human resource and have a positive change, that will do better and will today or tomorrow or in the upcoming decade permanently solve the problems of the nation and will thus push India, the ancient ruler of the globe, to be the superpower. As a citizen of India, i look forward to see my country on the top and am proud to say that i will be, very soon, a citizen of the world's best country.

Written by Dheeraj