India- Land and Density of Population

Excerptfrom “Simple Alternate Development Strategy” 1997

“Land and Density of Population

While in population India is the second largest, according to FAO statistics, in total area of land it is only the 7th largest… …However….. in 1991’…..India had 77% more ARABLE LAND than China, the most populous country…..It is seen from the above table that while density per hectare of arable land in India at 5.27 is higher than the world averge of 3.99 by about 32%, it is less than the Asian average of 7.51 by about 30%. Compared to more populous China,whose density is 12.39 per ha of arable land India’s density is just 32% of China.. In less poulated countries of Egypt Bangladesh,, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia Pakistan, former West Germany, UK, Italy and Netherlands, density per ha of arable land is higher than in India.Thus it is apparent that India’s density per ha of arable land is not at all high and hence reduction in population growth should not be a high priority issue for the planners at the moment. The high priority concern should be to provide employment to all able bodied ersons… However, as the land available for cultivation is limited, at some stage or the other the populaton growth has to be curtailed-if the growth continues at the present rate.But that stage will come not in 5 years or 10 years but in 50 years or 100 years i.e. when the population doubles/trebles but then, it is possible that new methods would have been evolved to increase the yield of foodgrains by 100% oe 200% or even higher…

As of now it is clear from the foregoing that India is not over populated …..If China with 93 mllion ha of arable land can feed 1.15 billion people, India with an arable land of 165 million ha should be able to feed 2.00 billion people, but the present population is less than one billion.

India should not treat the population as a liability. It is an asset which should be fully utilized. The casualness with which the authorities treat deaths due to disasters like floods, diseases, accidents can ultimately be traced to the attitude that lives of human beings are not very important……”

Though the figures have changed since 1991, the conclusion that India is not overpopulated remains correct. In fact it is supported by omythe fact that almost every sector of the economy faces shortage of labour. Of course, this is not due only to expansion of the economy but also to the fact that a sizable section of the population manage to live with working for 5-10 days a month with the free things they are getting from govenment.

India- Export of Technology

Excerpts from “Simple Alternate Development Strategy”1997

India

“Import of technology can be avoided,if in addition to the correction of the universiy admission system. the Indian companies allot about 15-25% of their work force, for research and development. Manpower is much cheaper in India than in advanced countries. If an advanced country like Japan or Germany or USA can deploy 100 people for research and development in a particular area, India can afford to earmark 500 people or 1000 people or more for the same purpose. Then India can improve technology much faser than developed countries and also develop much higher and sophisticated technology and within 4-5 years the country will be in a position to export technology to foreign coutries. While developed countries like Sweden, denmark, Finland etc. with populations of less than 10 million can concentrate and specialise only in a few fields, India with a population of over 900 million, can specialise in almost all fields. India has the third largest reservoir of scientific and technological manpower. But unfortunately all are not employed. Even of the employed, not all are doing scientific and tehnical work. Most of the scientists, doctors and technocrats occupying very high positions in their respective fields do very little of their work but more of administrative work, (their aptitude, more for administrative work than to technical and scientific work, can be traced to the faulty admission system in professional courses…) which can be done by non-technical persons….It is really regrettable that with the third largest reservoir of scientific and technical personnel, India has not been able to produce even a single Nobel prize winner in science….. while many small countries in Europe can boast of several Nobel prize winners.

Small countires like Singapore and even medium sized countries like Malaysia, South Korea and Taiwan cannot afford to employ large enough number of people in research and developmt and, therefore have to import technology …..Again while in many countries,the colonial powers did not leave much of infrastructure for scientific and technical development, in India,the British have left large and well equipped establishments. At the time of independence, India had several univesities, scientific institutes like Geological
Survey of India,Meteorology Department, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research etc.The British established railways and telecommunication system in India within a few years of esablishment of the same in Europe. But this is not the case with several other countries. They did not leave such establishments in Singapore, Malaysia,Sri Lanka etc. In fact, some of the counries under the foreign rule, did not even have universities when they became independent. The British had even established several modern factories in India. All that India needed to do, after independence, was to improve upon and expand the existing institutes. Even now the task is only to improve and expand the existing establishments and not to start from the scratch. If done, India could become major exporter of sophisticated technology in almost every field.”