Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
was 1.3 percent) because of the high fertility and high mortality. Hence,
natural increase in population was quite low, added only nine million pop-
ulation in these thirty years. During 1951-1981, the growth rate was very
high, exceeding 2.4 percent average annual exponential growth rate. In
this period the population increased to 54.6 million in 1981 from 26.3 mil-
lion in 1951, adding a total of 28.3 million population. After independence
mortality has declined very faster rate than fertility which broaden the gap
between births and deaths and ultimately it contributes on the natural in-
crease of the population. Besides the natural increase, effect of net migra-
tion was signifi cant in the rapid growth of population in West Bengal. Dur-
ing 1981-2011, the growth rate showed a declined trend (average annual
exponential growth rate 1.7 percent) over the previous period. Though
there was a slight fl uctuation between 1981 and 1991 but afterwards it
showed a steady decline trend. In the last decade (2001-2011) the average
annual exponential growth rate reached to 1.3 percent.
Figure 1 shows that along with the mortality, fertility also started to de-
cline over the time and hence natural growth rate turned down remarkably.
During 1981-83 natural growth rate was 21.9 per thousand of live births
and it came down to 12.1 per thousand of live birth during 2005-2007.
Figure 2 shows that decadal growth rate of West Bengal declined since
form 1971-1981. During 2001-2011, decadal growth rate declined to 13.9
percent which is much lower than the national growth rate (17.6 percent).
Though the growth rate of population in West Bengal is lower than the na-
tional average but it is signifi cantly higher than some of the South Indian
states.
The growth rate of West Bengal started to decline since 1981-1991
whereas growth rate of Kerala began to decline nearly 30 years before than
West Bengal since 1961-1971.
Now the major concern of population dynamics is that though fertility
reached to the replacement level of fertility in West Bengal (TFR below
2.1) but it will not guarantee the population stabilization in the near future
because of the impact of population momentum. This momentum in popu-
lation will continue for some more years because high TFR in the past
have resulted in a large proportion of population being currently in their
reproductive age group.
