INTRODUCTION

By looking at the increasing rate of population growth after independence and failure of various experiments in family planning the planners became a bit panicky. In April 1976, Dr. Karan Singh, the then Minister of Health and Family Planning, announced the National Population Policy of India. This became a landmark in population policy. The full text of the policy is given below.

FIRST POLICY STATEMENT

The first population policy draft maintained that poverty is the real enemy of the country, and the Fifth Five Year Plan (1974-79) aimed to remove the widespread abject poverty by including Minimum Needs Programme with an integrated package of health, family planning and nutrition as components. The complete text of the statement by Dr. Karan Singh, released on 16 April 1976 is as follows:

1. With 2.4 per cent of the world's land area, India has about 15 per cent of the world's people. It is estimated that our population as on 1 January, 1976 has crossed the 600 million mark, and is now rising at the rate of well over one million per month. Since Independence 250 millions have been added, equivalent to the entire population of the Soviet Union with six times the land area of India . The increase every year is now equal to the entire population of Australia which is 2½ times the size of our country.

2. If the percent rate of increase continues unchecked our population at the tern of the century may well reach the staggering figure of one billion. Indisputably we are facing a population explosion of crisis dimensions which has largely diluted the fruits of the remarkable economic progress that we have made over the last two decades. If the future of the nation is to be secured, and the goal of removing poverty to be attained, the population problem will have to be treated as a top national priority and commitment.