Shillong, April 19: India is set to become most populous country in the world surpassing China by mid 2023, a report by UN has claimed.
India’s population is estimated to be 1.4286 billion, compared to China’s 1.4257 billion, according to the United Nations Population Fund’s (UNFPA) ‘State of the World Population Report, 2023’ demographic data.
Using prior UN data, population analysts predicted that India will surpass China this month. But a time-frame for the change’s implementation was not included in the most recent report from the international organisation.
UN population officials stated that it was impossible to establish a time-frame due to “uncertainty” over the statistics coming out of China and India, particularly given that India’s previous census was conducted in 2011 and that the country’s upcoming one, which was scheduled to take place in 2021 but has been postponed due to the pandemic.
Even though the two Asian superpowers will make up more than one-third of the projected world population of 8.045 billion, China’s population growth has been slower than India’s.
For the first time in six decades, China’s population declined last year. This historic development is likely to signal the beginning of a protracted period of declining citizen numbers, which will have significant effects on China’s economy and the rest of the globe.
Government statistics show that India’s population has grown by 1.2% annually on average since 2011 as opposed to 1.7% over the previous ten years.
According to Andrea Wojnar, a representative for UNFPA India, “the Indian survey findings suggest that population anxieties have seeped into large portions of the general public.”
“However, population figures shouldn’t be alarming or cause worry. If individual rights and preferences are respected, they should be viewed as a sign of advancement, growth, and goals”, she said.
