Provisional census figures show that the city has seen a drop of 1.88 per cent in population.
India added 181 million people in the last 10 years to its population (1.21 billion, census 2011). Of this, 11 million people was Bengal's contribution.
However, what has forced demographers to wear their thinking hats in Bengal and left policy makers equally worried in a politically charged ambience, is Kolkata's demographic changes this decade. Provisional census figures show that the city has seen a drop of 1.88 per cent in population, which means that it has now 86,197 lesser people than it had ten years ago.
“We have observed that the population of the city has been coming down. This census, the rate has come down by 1.88,” said Dipak Ghosh, director of census operations, West Bengal.
While census officials are ready to accept the downfall in numbers, they have left demographers and experts on population to decode the mystery.
With preliminary figures alone out, the intellectual fraternity has several speculative interpolations based on experience rather than on more statistical data to bank on.
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“It's densely populated. Now old migrants are leaving. Migration is selective. It's only males. People are moving out of the city, that's why growth rate is down. Why the decline? There's no other reason to me, you can't say people are not producing children in Kolkata. It's not necessary that they might have gone to 24 Parganas (North and South,adjoining districts)...they might have gone to Haldia or other parts,” said Devendra Kothari, Forum for Population Action and professor, Population Programme Management.
What could probably corroborate the migration theory is that while Kolkata has seen a decline, West Bengal has witnessed a 13.93 per cent increase in population, albeit lower than the national average of 17.64 per cent.
The decline in absolute population, however, has not offered significant room to the congested city. Kolkata retains its distinction of being at the top in the state in terms of population density (24,252 per square kilometre, 2011 compared to 24,718 per sq. km in 2001).
Recently, this puzzling trend of decaying population of Kolkata also propped up at a special meeting organised by the Directorate of Census Operations, West Bengal and Unicef in the city and was attended by eminent population experts. Experts mostly preferred to wait for further census details.
Kolkata's reduced population over the decade is also prompting people to analyse the situation in political and social contexts that are believed to have definitely affected the situation.
“I think, people have become more conscious about family size and second more people have migrated away from Bengal, than those who are coming in. I guess, culturally, government (read Left rule) has been able generate awareness,” said Dipankar Dasgupta, renowned economist.
Kolkata's comparison with other urban centres – Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai merely in terms of heads cannot be a justification to the city, feel population experts. Several other parameters – primarily migration trends and opportunities will be clearer only with full census figures out.
“Provisional data is manual tabulation. Even the demographers are grappling. Why is it suddenly coming down to such an extent because we expect metros to grow,” wondered Shantanu Gupta of monitoring and evaluation office, Unicef, Delhi.