Island city’s population plunged 6% in last decade Sharpest Drop In 100 Years; Slowest Growth In Suburbs Since 1920s

Mumbai: It may be hard to believe but Mumbai recorded its slowest population growth in almost a century in the last decade. The population of the island city shrunk by 5.75% from 2001 to 2011, recording the sharpest drop in south Mumbai since 1901, according to a  detailed analysis of the latest Census data. Although the suburbs added 8.01% more people in the same 10-year-period, their growth was the slowest since the 1920s.      On the occasion of World Population Day today, demographers believe the news augurs well for the city even as they differ on the reasons for the changing population dynamics. While some attribute the decline in population growth to people choosing smaller families, others point to the saturation of the financial capital, plagued as it is with disappearing job opportunities and shrinkage of affordable homes. The Census is yet to release migration-related data which might offer more insights into the trend. FERTILITY RATE DIPS Family planning working: Experts  Mumbai:A detailed analysis of the 2011 Census of India data reveals a drastic 6% fall in the population of the island city from 2001-11. "This is historically the lowest population growth in the city. In the suburbs too, the rapidly declining trend indicates that population growth there too would hit zero or touch negative in the next decade," says P Arokiasamy of the International Institute for Population Sciences, an autonomous institute under the Union ministry of health and family welfare.      Demographers say Mumbai's people shifts are in keeping with global trends where population expectedly peaks at the nascent stages of development and subsequently falls. The city's population peaked till the fifties, with the suburbs seeing exponential growth between the 1950s and 1980s.      However, the growth decline can't undermine the challenges posed by the existing population. Five lakh more people were added in Mumbai in the past decade, taking its population to 1.24 crore, with an average of 20,038 persons packed into every square kilometre in the city and 20,925 persons in the extended suburbs.      DP Singh of the centre for research methodology at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences says people moved from the city to the suburbs when the real estate prices shot up. This perhaps explains why Thane's population in 2011 has swelled at a rate nearly four times that of Mumbai's suburbs. "The city limits of Mumbai are saturated which explains the decade-on-decade decline of population. No new industry has come up in Mumbai recently and economic surveys have shown that employment is falling, both in terms of establishments as well as employers," he points out. The rehabilitation of slums to far-flung areas may explain some shifts.      Most significantly, the declining population growth indicates the success of population stabilization in terms of declining total fertility rate (average number of children per women) as well as better healthcare facilities in terms of lower mortality, believes Arokiasamy. "It means there is faster diffusion of family planning norms here than in the past," he observes.      His views are corroborated by Dr Usha Krishna who formerly headed the Family Planning Association of India. "In the educated middle and upper classes we see a trend of people accepting contraceptives, women delaying first pregnancy and opting for one child"