Ramachandra Bairy, District Health and Family Welfare Officer, said on Thursday that the declining child sex ratio in Udupi district was a cause for concern. He was speaking at the World Population Day function organised by Zilla Panchayat, District Health and Family Welfare Department at the Government Pre-University College here.
Dr. Bairy said that child sex ratio is defined as the number of females per thousand males in the 0 to 6 years age group.
The child sex ratio in the district was 958 girls per 1,000 boys as per 2001 Census. But in the 2011 Census, the child sex ratio was down to 955 girls per 1,000 boys. The skewed child ratio is not a good sign, especially because Udupi is considered a literate district, he said.
The population of Udupi district, which was 11.12 lakh in 2001, had increased to 11.77 lakh in 2011. This was the slowest rise in population in a district in the entire state, Dr. Bairy said. The population of Karnataka, which was 1.94 crore in 2001, increased to 6.11 crore in 10 years.
The population of India, which was 36 crore in 1951, rose to 121 crore in 2011. The country added an average of 1.81 crore to its population every year.
The unproductive population in the country – that is individuals from 0 to 15 years – stood at 33 per cent of the total population, while persons above 60 years constituted 7.3 per cent of the total population. This meant that dependency ratio in the country was 40 per cent, Dr. Bairy said.
The population of the world was 20 crore in 1 A.D., Dr. Bairy said. It increased to 100 crore in 1804, and to 600 crore in 1999. This population touched 715 crore in June 2013.
Upendra Nayak, president of Zilla Panchayat, said that all people should cooperate in controlling the population of the country. Educated couple preferred to have one or two children these days, but the number of children was higher in poor families, he noted.
With the breakdown of joint family system, nuclear families has become the order of the day. People have little time or inclination to take care of the aged. As a result, the number of old-age homes is increasing, Mr. Nayak said.
