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Every sixth person in the world now officially
calls India home in spite of the country's sharpest slow-down
in the population growth rate since India's independence.
A preliminary tally of the Census of India
2001, confirms that India's population has crossed the
one billion-person mark, making it the second country
in the world to top a billion, after China.
At midnight on March 1, 2001, India's
population stood at 1,027,015,247, despite a 2.5% decrease
in India's population growth rate during the last decade from
nearly 24% in 1981-1991 to the current rate of 21.3% for 1991-2001.
The results reveal that India has added
about 181 million people to its population between
1991-2001, more than the estimated population of Brazil, the
fifth most populous country in the world.
New population control measures that fit
into India's social and political system must be taken or
else demographic experts fear that India's population may
surpass China's before 2025.
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