Pvt sector can help solve India's population crisis: Assocham

With the world's population touching 7 billion, Assocham said on Tuesday India should allocate more funds to the health and education sectors to streamline economic growth.

With the birth of the world's seven billionth baby, Nargis, in Lucknow on Monday, the chamber said more involvement from the private sector must be encouraged to solve India's population woes.

India, with 1.2 billion people, is expected to overtake China around 2030, it said.

"Thus, the government

must come up with a comprehensive PPP policy for both central and state governments to effectively deal with these perennial issues," secretary general D S Rawat said, adding that efforts should be made to impart vocational training to enhance farming skills among the rural workforce.

"But there are huge concerns. . . .The country has the highest number of kids suffering from hunger, fatal diseases," it said.

To overcome this, authorities should adopt development measurement indicators like health per acre, nutrition per acre and effective education per acre, it asserted.