Population Growth in India

In the 70's, India's growing population was an issue of concern everywhere, including India. Over time, this concern has disappeared, to be replaced by excitement about the growing population. India has successfully converted its population from a liability to an asset. Greater population means more consumers, and more workers. India is pointed out as having a greater potential for success compared to its fellow emerging economy - China. The reason is that India's population is younger, and many more people in India will enter the workforce in the next few years.

There is no evidence, however, that population is not going to be a problem. There is a little more on this at:
http://sai-os.blogspot.com/2007/06/is-population-growth-on-planet-no.html

Today's Financial Times carried on OpEd piece by Victor Mallet. It is available on many websites, including this one.
http://in.rediff.com/money/2007/dec/06utop.htm


Here are important points:

1. "The population surge that will increase the workforce to 800m by 2016 and make India the world's most populous nation - may turn out to be more of a threat than an opportunity."
2. "Who will create the jobs to absorb the net increase of 71m young people of working age over the next five years? Most are poorly educated and only a fraction will find regular work.
3. It questions about their impact on the supply of water and fuel.
4. Eventually, these people will retire; who will take care of them

The OpEd piece correctly concludes that the optimists have taken over, failing to do anything about this issue. It is time that the authorities and the people in India start taking the issue seriously again.

Farmers - 60% of India's Population

The Financial Times in one of their editions in June 2007, (http://www.ft.com/cms/s/ed531a4c-1add-11dc-8bf0-000b5df10621.html - can read it on-line only if you subscribe to ft.com) states that 60 % of India is in agriculture.

India does not have an appreciable food surplus or deficit. That means that 6 families are working to provide food to 10 families. Or, each one family lives on income it generates from providing food to 10/6 = 1 and 2/3 families. One of them is their own family. So, each family lives on income it generates from providing food to 2/3 of another family.

Doesn't sound very good. It is even worse than this:
1. The farmers get their money from selling to the first of many middle-men, so they get much less than what what we pay at a retail store.
2. This money is used for all their non-food expenses - living, education, retirement, ...
3. This is the average amount. So, broadly speaking, about half the families get less than this. My guess is that it many more than half get less than this amount.

One way to do something for India, is to increase this ratio of 2/3. So, if each family provides food for even 2 families, they increase their earning by a factor of 3.

Doable?