Neeraj Bagga Amritsar, July 11 Headcount As the globe celebrates the World Population Day, the city has a reason to worry about — rising population. Experts say it has been resulting in high unemployment, large demand of housing, congestion on roads, inflation, etc. The district’s population rose from 13.67 lakh in 1951 to about 30 lakh in 2011. An economist, Dr Varinder Bhatia, says the rising population has become a global concern as never before the Earth was populated with 7.5 billion people. “Given this scenario, the holy city is no exception. So there is a tremendous stress on limited natural resources.” The government has failed to provide planned housing so there 450 illegal colonies have come up in the city. Like the old city, congestion would perpetuate with its mixed use area and small width of roads. Majority of the houses in these colonies are compelled to set up septic tanks on their own to discharge waste. Punjab Pradesh Beopar Mandal president PL Seth says, “High population results in a spurt in demand for land. The border district has been facing this problem. It has made setting up of industrial units here costly.” “We did not learn from the success of China which has managed to progress at a higher speed by limiting its population growth,” he observed. Seth said the government failed to turn such a vast human population into a source of progress. “There is a mismatch in courses being offered in ITIs and other training centres, whereas the requirement of industries is different. So a majority of youth do not find jobs locally.” A private medical practitioner, Dr Gurpreet Singh, said increasing population is the reason behind setting up of high number of private hospitals, laboratories and allied facilities here. Government medical institutes are insufficient to cater to a high number of patients so there are plenty of private and society-run medical institutes. Deputy Commissioner (DC) KS Sangha said the government was trying to make people aware of the affects of high population. Meanwhile, the district administration on Wednesday kicked off a fortnight long programme under which camps would be held to provide choice of family planning service to people. Year Population 1951 13,67,040 1961 15,34,916 1971 18,35,500 1981 21,88,490 1991 25,05,034 2001 30,96,077 2011 24,90,656 (Plunge in population in 2011 due to formation of Tarn Taran district in 2006)

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