Higher Decadal Population Growth Rate in Bihar, Northern State in India, during 1991-2001: An Investigation for Possible Reasons from the Preliminary Census 2001 Data

Ajay Pandey, National Commission on Population (NCP)

Census is a major source of demographic data, which provides huge volume of data relating to socio-economic and demographic scenario of the country as a whole to the lowest level of village /town. Census is THE SOURCE, which provides data on growth pattern of any state in the country. However, census provides a static view prevailing at the time of census. The Civil Registration System is capable of providing a dynamic view, as it is a continuous process of registering all births and deaths in an area. However, it is a well-known fact that for most of the country, the data generated from Civil Registration System are very much inadequate having very little reliability. Perhaps keeping in view this limitation, government of India launched the Sample registration System in 1960's to provide reliable estimates of fertility and mortality at the State level. This is considered to be the major source of information for reliable estimate of fertility and mortality at the State level separately for rural and urban areas as well. Well-planed and well-designed sample surveys are the other major source of demographic data, which provide valuable information on various socio-demographic characteristics from time to time. Although these are capable of providing detailed information on topics of special interest but because of inherent nature of sampling, the results involve apart form other errors, the sampling error too. It is therefore, important to take into account these facts while drawing conclusions from the collected data in census and surveys. One of the major sources of error in census is the error of coverage, and despite all efforts at the organizational level, there is problem of omission and duplication at the grass root level, either on the part of enumerator or respondent or both. There is also tendency of under reporting of very young children, especially female child by the respondents. On the contrary there is also a possibility of over reporting of persons specially males who are normally migrants but have all social, economic and property links to the households at the place of origin. 2001 Census has shown comparatively high decadal growth rate in Bihar, northern state in India, during 1991-2001. The growth rate in Bihar increased from 23.38 % in 1981-91 to 28.43 % during the decade 1991-2001. With very little information from the 2001 census (since the detailed data on the interstate migration take's time) the challenge is, how best the increase in the population growth rate during the last decade could possibly be explained? There is general view that the increase in the growth rate in Bihar during the last decade may be partly attributable to the element of under reporting in Census 1991. In the present study therefore, an attempt is made indirectly to test this hypothesis to investigate possible reasons for this observed fact.