Abstract

PIP: In India there is a qualitative as well as a quantitative dimension to the population problem which should cause even greater concern and alarm and that is the steady deterioration of the physical and mental caliber of the country's "human resources." Of the nearly 23 million children who will be born in India in 1983, nearly 3 million may be expected to die. Less than 3 million of the 23 million will become truly healthy, physically fit, productive, and intellectually capable citizens. The qualitative dimension of the population problem is interrelated to the quantitative dimension in a mutually synergistic fashion. The persistent increase in numbers aggravates the qualitative deterioration, and the latter serves to facilitate such increase. Although it is imperative that in the national interest family planning programs and population control measures continue to receive highest priority, the problems of ill health and undernutrition among the poor will not be solved by these measures alone within the next 3 decades. Discussion focus is on the national nutrition and the national health scene and food production. The most recent reports of the National Nutrition Monitoring Bureau show that in nearly 85% of children under age 5, body weight is less than 80% of the normal values observed in well nourished Indian children not subject to socioeconomic constraints. At this time about 40 million people in India suffer from goiter, and iron deficiency anemia is widespread among the Indian population. Clearly, the nutrition factor needs to be given high priority in a population policy designed to promote national development. The infant mortality rate has remained stationary in the past decade (136/1000 in 1970 and 136/1000 in 1978), and the urban mortality rate declined from 90/1000 in 1970 to 70/1000 in 1978. There is now increasing concern in India over the possible erosion of the breastfeeding practice as a result of unethical and aggressive sales promotion campaigns of baby food manufacturers. Food grain production has increased over the past 2 decades, but there is no room for complacency. What is proposed is an imaginative special program to be instituted in India's rural areas and directed to young unmarried girls of 10 years of age or older. It should include a special 2-year education program on infant feeding and child rearing, nutrition, family planning, personal and environmental hygiene, and vocational training designed to impart special skills for self employment in selected fields appropriate to the particular rural area.