South Asian Population: A Never Ending Major Concern

Most of us and know that by South Asia, we indicate seven countries and they are: Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. The organization representing these countries is called SAARC. You already know that this blog is a bout South Asian business and economy. Afghanistan is also a member of SAARC now and thus, and there are eight members. Let us take a look at their population:

Afghanistan— 33 million

Bangladesh— 150 million

Bhutan – 0.7 million

India – 1,147 million

Maldives – 0.3 million

Nepal – 30 million

Pakistan – 172 million

Sri Lanka – 21 million

(Source: Wikipedia entries on these countries and nearest round figure in million has been taken)

Thus, the population of south Asia is approximate 1.55 billion. This is a huge population and it is almost ¼ of the entire global population. So, you can easily understand that south Asia is now too much overpopulated and population is indeed the biggest problem for the region. The tragedy is that most people in the region are very poor, illiterate, unemployed and most of all hungry. Their only dream is to have three decent meals a day. They have no access to basic health care facilities. In the urban cities, many of them live either in the street or in slums.

Just take a look at any big city of South Asia: Dhaka, Kolkata, Delhi, Mumbai, Karachi- you will find the same picture everywhere. What is very painful indeed is to see that many people living in the street just beside the posh areas. You can find perhaps the similar picture in rural areas. Many family is in the village areas are landless and they have to work as day laborers in the land of other people. This is a common picture everywhere in south Asia.

To be honest with you, I cannot find any seriousness among decision makers in any country of South Asia about population explosion. But China has the same kind of problem and Chinese government for many years is following a very strict policy on population control. There is no doubt that the economic condition of China is much better than any country in south Asia. That is why I get even more shocked and I feel dismayed at the lack of seriousness among politicians in this region about population problem. It seems that all the governments have come to the conclusion that it is not a very big problem.

They perhaps forget that it is the mother of all problems. There are so many people who are very poor because the population of south Asia is now over 1.5 billion. So many people are uneducated because every year, millions of young people join the job market. But I thing that more than 10 million people from the region are working in different parts of the world but yet it is like a drop of rain in the desert and there are millions of people who cannot find any work.

I really believe that it is high time to address the issue very seriously. It is already late but there is a proverb ‘better late than never’.

(This entry was first published in February 2009. Because of a technical problem, the entry had to be deleted and I am reposting again now.)