Five million fewer children were born in the last ten years than in the previous one, an analysis of the census 2011 data by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation shows.
While an absolute increase of 181 million in the country’s population has been recorded during the decade 2001-2011, there is a reduction of 5.05 millions in the population of children aged 0-6 years during this period, Children in India 2012, A Statistical Appraisal a report by the ministy says.
In 2011, the total number of children in the age-group 0-6 years is reported as 158.79 million which is down by 3.1% compared to the child population in 2001 of the order of 163.84 million. The share of children (0-6 years) to the total population is 13.1% in 2011
whereas the corresponding figures for male children and female children are 13.3% and 12.9%.The decline in male children is 2.06 million and in female children is 2.99 millions.
The share of Children (0-6 years) in the total population has showed a decline of 2.8 points in 2011, compared to Census 2001 and the decline was sharper for female children than male children in the age group 0-6 years.
The report notes that every year, an estimated 26 millions of children are born in India which is nearly 4 million more than the population of Australia.
Missing girls: However while the size of child population in the age group (0-6 years) is declining with decline in the share of children in the total population, the share of girls in 0-6 years is declining faster than that of boys of 0-6 years. This process has led to missing of nearly 3
million girl children compared to 2 million missing boy children in 2011, compared to 2001. There are now 48 fewer girls per 1,000 boys than there were in 1981.
North South divide: The divide between the north and south has got even starker with the child sex ratio in 2011. With the exception of Himachal Pradesh, no state in north India now has a child sex ratio above 900. Jammu and Kashmir has seen the most severe drop of 82 points
in its child sex ratio, making it the third worst state after Haryana and Punjab. In 2001, Jammu and Kashmir had a better child sex ratio than the Indian average. Haryana (830) and Punjab (846) remain at the bottom of the table, but have improved over 2001.
India's north-east seems to have a much healthier attitude to girl children than the rest of the country: Mizoram, Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh have the highest child sex ratios among the states followed by Chhattisgarh, Puducherry, Andaman & Nicobar and Kerala.
