Toronto Sun

Tuesday, March 27, 2001

India reaches 1 billion

By AP

NEW DELHI -- The population of the world's largest democracy has officially passed 1 billion, making India the second country after China to cross the billion mark.

There were an estimated 1.02 billion people in India on March 1, representing 16.7% of the world's population, the census report said, according to the India news agency. India's population in 1991 was 846 million.

In a much publicized event last year, the United Nations Population Fund and the government announced that India's population reached 1 billion on May 11.

That figure, however, was an estimate based on India's growth rate and did not reflect India's actual population. The government staged the milestone as part of a public campaign to encourage Indians to have smaller families.

In the latest survey, however, more than 2 million census takers visited more than 200 million households during a three-week head count, covering 650,000 villages and 5,000 towns.

Since the last census in 1991, India registered a 2.52% drop per decade in its growth rate. There were also 933 women per 1,000 men compared to 927 for every 1,000 men in 1991.

-- Anonymous, March 27, 2001