The Scenario of Population Growth in South 24 Parganas District, West Bengal, India

The South 24 Parganas is the largest and the second populated district is originated on 1st March in 1986 in West Bengal state in India. The paper primarily explains about the history of population growth and gives an overview of the trends of population growth over hundred years of the district and patterns of population growth has been discussed in block level for last three decades. It explains the differential population growth for both rural and urban areas. It also suggests that the rural unemployment and diminishing agricultural productivity are responsible for the rural urban migration and resultant very high population growth in urban areas than rural areas. This paper attempts to identify the accelerating population growth in the northern part of the study area which is contiguous to Kolkata due to the urbanisation, industrialization and commercialization etc. whereas declining trends of population growth has been observed in the rural agrarian littoral deltaic southern part which is contiguous to the Sundarbans mangrove forest.