Population Policy
India was the
first developing country to adopt a population policy
and to launch a
nationwide family planning programme in 1952. The main
objective of the
population policy is to ensure that there is reasonable gap
between the fall
of death and birth rates. Population policy refers to the
efforts made by
any Government to control and change the population
structure.
National
Population Policy 2000
The National
Population Policy (NPP) 2000 has the immediate
objective of
addressing the unmet needs of contraception, health
infrastructure,
health personnel and integrating service delivery for basic
reproductive and
child health care.
It also lays
emphasis on the medium term objective of bringing total
fertility rates
to replacement level by 2010. A Total Fertility Rate of 2.1 is
known as
replacement level fertility.
The policy’s
long term objective is to stabilise population by 2045.
A National
Commission on population presided over by the Prime
Minister, Chief
Ministers of all States and other dignitaries as the members
has been
constituted to oversee and review the policy (NPP-2000)
implementation.
Similar to the
National Commission, State Level Commissions presided
over by the
respective State Chief Ministers have also been set up with the
same objective of
ensuring implementation of the policies.
Programmes
to eliminate poverty
1.
Land Reforms
Land reforms
legislation has been passed by the state governments,
which aim at
improving the economic conditions of agricultural landless
labourers. For
instance, with the abolition of the Zamindari system, the
exploitation
associated with the system has been removed. Tenancy Laws
have been passed in
most of the states for protecting the interests of the
tenants and helping
them to acquire possession over the lands they cultivate.
Every state has
passed the necessary legislation fixing ceiling on agricultural
holdings by which the
maximum amount of land which a person can hold has
been fixed by law.
The surplus lands thus acquired were to be distributed to
the landless
labourers and small peasants.
2.
Jawahar Gram Samridhi Yojana (JGSY)
It was introduced in
April 1999 as a successor to Jawahar Rozgar Yojana
on a cost sharing
basis of 75 : 25 between the Union and States.
3.
National Social Assistance Programme (NSAP)
It was launched on
August 15, 1995 to provide social assistance benefits
to poor households
affected by old age, death of primary bread winner or
need for maternity
care.
4.
Employment Assurance Scheme (EAS)
It was started on
October 2, 1993 in 1778 backward blocks in drought
prone, desert, tribal
and hill areas. It was expanded to cover all the 5,488
rural blocks of the
country. It gave wage employment to the rural poor. In
September 2001, it
was merged into new Sampoorna Gramin Rozgar Yojana
along with Jawahar
Gram Samridhi Yojana.
5.
Pradhan Mantri Gramodaya Yojana (PMGY)
It was introduced in
the Budget for 2000-2001 with an allocation of Rs.
5,000 crore. Its
focus is on health, primary education, drinking water, housing
and rural roads.
Common Property
Rights in grazing lands, wastelands, forests and
water resources were
made available to the rural people in the past. They
have been cancelled
in the recent past due to commercialisation and
privatisation of
these rural community resources in the country.
6.
Swarna Jayanti Shahari Rozgar Yojana (SJSRY)
Urban self-employment
and urban wage-employment are the two
special schemes under
it. It substituted in December 1997 various
programmes operated
earlier for urban poverty alleviation. It is funded on
75: 25 basis between
the Union and the States. The expenditure under this
scheme was only Rs.
45.5 crore at the revised stage. It was Rs. 39.21 crore
in 2001-02 and an
allocation of Rs. 105 crore was provided for 2002-03
(Economic Survey,
2002-03, p.217).
7.
Integrated Rural Development Programme (IRDP)
The concept of an
Integrated Rural Development Programme was
first proposed in the
central budget for 1976-77, and a beginning was made
in this regard. This
programme was intended to assist rural population to
derive economic
benefits from the development of assets of each area.
The programme with
some modifications was introduced on an
expanded scale in
1978-79, beginning with 2,300 blocks, of which 2000
were under common
coverage with SFDA, DPAP and CADP, with another
300 blocks added up
during 1979-80. Its coverage was extended to all the
blocks of the country
since October 2, 1980.
Besides the smaller
and marginal farmers, this programme was more
specific in regard to
agricultural workers and landless labourers, and
additionally brought
within its purview rural artisans also. The programme
emphasised the family
rather than the individual approach in the identification
of the beneficiaries.
National income: National income is a
measure of the total value of the goods and services
(output) produced
by an economy over a period of time (normally a year). It
is also a measure
of the income flown from production, and/or the sum total
of all the spending
involved for the production of output.
Gross National Product
Gross National
Product (GNP) is the total value of output (goods and
services) produced
and income received in a year by domestic residents of
a country. It
includes profits earned from capital invested abroad.
Gros s Domestic Product
Gross Domestic
Product (GDP) is the total value of output (goods
and services)
produced by the factors of production located within the
country’s boundary in
a year. The factors of production may be owned by
any one – citizens or
foreigners.
GNP – Net income
earned from abroad = GDP
Thus, GDP measures
income from where it is earned rather than who
owns the factors of
production.
Net National Product
Net National Product
(NNP) is arrived at by making some
adjustment, with
regard to depreciation, in GNP. As noted above, GNP is
the total value of
output produced and income received in a year by domestic
residents of a
country. Over this one year period, the available plant and
machinery (capital)
will wear and tear and get condemned. Such decline in
the capital assets
due to wear and tear is measured as ‘capital depreciation’.
NNP is arrived at by
deducting value of such depreciation from GNP.
That is GNP –
Depreciation = NNP
Net Domestic Product
Net domestic product
(NDP) is also arrived from GDP by making
adjustment with
regard to depreciation in the same way described above.
(NDP is calculated by
deducting depreciation from GDP).
GDP – Depreciation =
NDP
Per Capita Income
Per capita income
(or) output per person is an indicator to show
the
living standards of people in a country. If real PCI increases, it
is
considered to be an
improvement in the overall living standard of people.
PCI is arrived at by
dividing the GDP by the size of population. It is also
arrived by making
some adjustment with GDP.
GDP and GNP
While GDP indicates
productive capacity of an economy, GNP is a
crude indicator for
living standard. The significance of the distinction between
GNP and GDP depends
on the nature of a particular economy. For instance,
if a country has more
non-resident inflows and produces a considerable
portion of its output
by multinational corporations (i.e. with the help of external
factors of
production), its GNP will be higher than GDP. Otherwise the
distinction will be
negligible.
Many countries have
foreign firms. In the case of US Ford Motors in
Chennai, the income
from the car factory would be counted as Indian GDP
and not as US GDP.
But the amount of profit the company sends to US will
be added to their
GNP. Similarly, our GNP can be arrived by adding to our
GDP the net factor
income receipts from abroad for the factor inputs owned
by Indians. That is,
the non-resident Indians income will be added to GDP
to arrive at our GNP.
