Over population: A negative factor for

development

Population boom is a formidable obstacle to development in Bangladesh. The country had a

According to the UN report “The State of the world population report” – 2010, the current
population of Bangladesh is 160.44 million. But demographers believe that it would be at
least 170 million. When I am preparing this article a population census is going on across the
country. Perhaps, a correct demographic scenario will come out from the census, which is
very important for chalking out development strategies.

The density of population in the country is 1,090 per square km which is four times and
eight times higher than those in India and China respectively. With the present growth rate,
about 2.4 million people are being added to the population every year. If this growth rate
continues, the population will be double in less than 40 years.

A large number of female adolescents enter the reproductive age every year. In 2001, the
size of this group was 30.18 million. Just after one decade, it reached 40.08 million. This age-
group population has the potential dynamics to increase population as well as TFR (Total
Fertility Rate) both in urban slums, rural areas and char regions. So, the government needs
to adopt a pluralistic approach to address the problem and motivate this group to use family
planning methods.

Managing urban population in six big cities especially in Dhaka shall be one of the major
challenges for the future governments. At present the urban-rural population distribution is
28:72. Of the rural migrants, about 80 percent are absorbed in the capital and divisional
cities and the rest in the remaining 56 district towns of the country. Migration rate from rural
areas to urban centres has rapidly increased since the eighties due to unavailability of
employment in the rural economy. As a result, city life is seriously hampered and nears to
collapse in terms of habitation and availability of basic amenities. The number of slum
dwellers is increasing rapidly. The country-wide average of slum dwellers is 35 percent of
the urban people but whereas in Dhaka it is 40 percent, which is contributing 75 percent
increase to urban population. But no domiciliary service is introduced among slums dwellers
to control population growth. Now it is time to reconstitute the second urban primary health
care services where population control activities should get top most priority in scaling up
services among the slum dwellers in order to down size the population growth momentum.

Urbanisation is a significant parameter on improving city life. Many studies show, the
average rate of urbanisation is 3.5 percent per annum whereas growth rate of slums is 7
percent. This statistics is alarming and ominous for us. But what is even more worrying is
that family planning activities is totally absent in urban areas. Moreover, most of the people
are not aware of the need for family planning.
The family planning directorate was constituted in 1973 with an objective of population
control. But this directorate is now facing challenges to conduct the family planning
programmes due to manpower shortage and inefficient monitoring system.

In the near future the urban-rural population distribution will be almost the same. 48 percent
people will live in urban areas by 2050 when the population is projected to reach 300
million. Within the next 15 to 24 years the population of six cities shall be double, which will
lead to demographic catastrophes paralysing city life. More schools, health and family
planning centres, more specious roads and public transportation facilities, more supply of
gas, electricity, pure water, sanitation etc shall have to be made available for this swollen
populace. All these will involve huge investments. Besides, law and order is likely to
deteriorate to such an extent that it may frequently destabilise the administration.

The population control programmes in the country were initiated in 1965 but no integrated
national population policy has so far been adopted. In spite of that we achieved some
significant success in population control. CPR (Contraceptive Prevalence Rate) was eight
percent by the mid-seventy and increased to 59 percent now; on the other hand, TFR (Total
Fertility Rate) declined to 2.7 from 6.3 in 1974. The Maternal Mortality Rate (MMR) was 650
by the mid-seventy which came down to 194 per hundred thousand within four decades and
Infant Mortality Rate declined to 52 from 163.

All these could have been achieved because of aggressive implementation of population
control activities like providing domiciliary services among eligible couples both in urban and
rural areas and availability of birth control methods at cheaper rates or free of cost. But still
there are some challenges to combat population growth in Bangladesh. NPC, NIPORT and DG
family planning are the key bodies to make action plan on population programmes and
management. But the harsh reality is that the National Population Council headed by the
honourable prime minister is dysfunctional as the NPC had no regular meeting with different
stakeholders to enhance population control action plan. Posts of more than eight thousand
family planning employees are vacant which seriously hampers the door to door services in
providing family planning methods, contraceptives as well as looking after maternal and
child health. These posts should immediately be fulfilled. Chittagong and Sylhet divisions are
the low performing areas in terms of family planning activities as CPR is low and TFR is high
there. This requires taking a holistic approach considering the socio-economic and cultural
conditions in those areas to strengthen population control action plan.

All development activities will be affected unless population boom can be arrested. But this
is not possible on the part of the government alone.

Population control programme is not just a contraceptive-oriented policy but a new