Population Retarding in Nagaland

Population Retarding in Nagaland

Marchang Reimeingam

Morung Express, Nagaland, July 2011

The only state, among 35 states and union territories of India, which has experienced a negative decadal growth rate of population during 2001-2011 is Nagaland. Nagaland is the fifth largest state in terms of population among the eight north eastern states. At present, it contributes merely 0.16 percent, which has declined from 0.19 in 2001, in India’s 1.21 billion people. Population was growing at 64.53 percent, decadal, during 1991-2001; however, surprisingly, it has considerably retarded to negative 0.47 percent during 2001-2011. Eventually, the density of population has fallen from 120 in 2001 to 119 in 2011. The nation also experiences a declining growth rate but not to the extent Nagaland has experienced. At national level the growth rate was declining from 21.34 to 17.64 percent during the same period respectively. Population decline in the Nagaland is too sharp as compared to the decline across the states and union territories. Some responsible features for such situation may be due to the under count or enumeration, out-migration particularly in the large cities for education, job, marriage, etc., family planning due dearer cost of living or rise in literacy, change in the vital factors such as birth or death, and so on. Let’s briefly examine some crucial features which might have affected in the sharp decline of population growth.

Migration data of 2007-08, according to National Sample Survey, shows that the net-migration, i.e. in-migrants minus out-migrants to another state and to abroad, was negative 4500. This means that more people migrated outside the state than migrating towards the state. As large as 27700 people from the state out-migrated to another states and 100 people to abroad. They migrated mainly for employment and marriage as the data shows, interestingly, that as large as 40.1 percent of the total out-migrants were for employment related reasons, the rest migrated for studies (15.4), forced migration (0.1), marriage (43.3), movement of parent/earning members (0.5) and others (0.8).

Sample Registration System tells a different story. It has estimated that the birth rate has increased from 13.9 to 17.2 per one thousand populations from 2004 to 2009 for the state; however, for national level, it has declined from 24.1 to 22.5 in the same period. For comparability, data of 2004 is used because prior to this period the birth and death rate were estimated only for urban Nagaland due to “part-receipt of returns” for rural areas. The data portrays that birth rate was lower for the state as compared to the national level because of the lower death rate. The death rate was lower for the state at 3.7 per one thousand populations as compared to as high as 7.5 at the national level in 2004. As the health care facilities and infrastructures improves along with the wider horizontal spread of education and knowledge the death rate has slightly declined to 3.6 for the state and to 7.3 for the national level in 2009. The lower mortality prevalence in Nagaland is most likely due to the better availability and accessibility of health care facilities, but doubtful, as compared to the national health facilities. Doubtful because the increased in birth rate is due to the increased in the infant mortality rate (IMR), that is an important indicator of the health status. The estimated IMR has recorded a considerable increased from 17 per one thousand live births in 2004 to 26 in 2009 in the state.

Population growth became negative in Nagaland when birth rate and IMR are increasing while out-migrants outnumbered the in-migrants.

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For citation: Marchang Reimeingam, Population Retarding in Nagaland, Morung Express, Nagaland, July 2011.