It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. This is a slow sort of country. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that." So said the Queen to Alice in Wonderland. She could have been talking about India in 2020.

TEAMING MILLIONS: An asset or a liability?

For a nation struggling and swinging between 4 and 8 per cent GDP growth, burgeoning population could be both a challenge and an opportunity. For years the reigning mantra for economic growth has been the much-vaunted percolation theory. Very simply higher growth will lift those at the bottom of the pyramid higher.

To an extent the theory has worked and India has been able to reduce the numbers living in absolute poverty to a quarter of its populace or 260 million in over a decade. While the reforms of the 1990s have paid dividends, growth is skewed as seven of 10 people still depend on a fourth of the national income. Incomes are not only skewed between urban and rural populace but also geographically.

Worse, the geographical imbalance has a demographic bias. While smaller, less populous states are faring better, the bigger states with higher density are high on deprivation and low on performance. While the worst district in Kerala, Mallapuram, ranks 36 among 593 districts, even the best districts of the populous states like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Jharkhand are nowhere in the top 200. Lucknow ranks 215, Patna 356 and Ranchi is at 245.

What is emerging is an alarming numerical soup. By 2020 India's population would touch 134 crore or 1.34 billion. Over 237 million of these would be in the school-going age of 5 to 14, 846 million would be in the working age of 15 to 59 and 132 million in the 60-plus age group. That is every third person would be a dependent and six of 10 Indians (a rise of 42 per cent) would need jobs.

Also, India will need over 300 million tonnes of foodgrains, over 800 billion cu m of water and housing for over 265 million households. Already the International Food Policy Research Institute has forecast a cereal shortage of up to 64 million tonnes. Currently, India has over 40 million registered jobless people and produces more than 200 million tonnes of foodgrains.

INDIA NIWAS: Burgeoning members

Talk about stretched resources and resultant deprivation. Of the 191 million households only a third have access to drinking water, over 54 million have no roof over their heads. As of now seven of 10 Indians are living off the rural economy with an average per capita income of Rs 7,900 ($175) as against the national average of Rs 21,670 ($480).

Walk down the banks of the Ganga and the picture gets worse. By 2020 Uttar Pradesh will have a population of 266 million which is more than the current population of the US. Of this 60 million children will be in the school-going age. To appreciate the magnitude of the crisis in education take a look at the current scenario. Only one in four children below 10 in Uttar Pradesh has completed primary education and the state has an overall literacy rate of just 57 per cent.

Bihar is no better. Bihar's current per capita income (GSDP) is Rs 3,649 and literacy rate 47.5 per cent. Only one in four babies is born with medical assistance, just 4 per cent of homes have access to tap water and one in 10 homes has electricity.By 2020, Of the 142 million populace 88 million will need jobs while 27 million children will need schools and teachers

It is a story foretold by Thomas Robert Malthus in his Essay on the Principle of Population in 1798 and exaggerated by Paul Ehrlich in The Population Bomb in 1968. Malthus argued that population expanded "geometrically", while subsistence increases only in an "arithmetic ratio". He believed that man's ability to increase his food supply was constrained in three ways: through land scarcity, the limited production capacity of cultivated land and the law of diminishing returns. Such an idea was riveting in that it predicted a possible scenario where population growth would outstrip subsistence-be it food, land, jobs, or any of the various components that define "subsistence". Ehrlich, on the other hand, postulated that dramatic programmes to "stretch" the carrying capacity of the earth by increasing food production ... will only provide a stay of execution unless they are accompanied by determined and successful efforts at population control.

While Malthus is still being debated, Ehrlich, who predicted great famines between 1970 and 1985, has been debunked by time. Both would have loved the demographic projections India is faced with. How India manages its ageing populace as it finds space and place for the young and willing in its economic plans will determine the level of peace in civil society. It is a spectre scary in the developmental context as it is in its human face.

It need not be so. Last year, Goldman Sachs' BRIC report projected India to be among the three biggest economies in the world along with China and the US by 2050. It also stated that India has the potential to show the fastest rate of growth at more than 5 per cent in the next 30 to 50 years and even after 2050 India would be the one country showing GDP growth rates of over 3 per cent. A Merrill Lynch report in August 2003 revealed that consumption was poised to double India's GDP by 2010.

And it is the demographic change India is witnessing which is fuelling the the optimism. With every second citizen under 20 years and seven of 10 under 35, it is the youngest populace in the world. Merrill Lynch estimates that by 2008 the number of households earning more than Rs 1,45,000 per annum will have increased by 75 per cent to touch 45 million and the number of households earning over Rs 2,50,000 could double to over 23 million as nearly seven million young earners are entering the economy every year. The underlying hope is that India's rulers will tune policy to empower the willing millions.

There is also the demographic opportunity emerging in the developed world. The N.K. Singh-led AIMA-Planning Commission Report reveals that as developed nations age-particularly Japan, US, France, Germany and Britain-there is an opportunity to create up to 72 million jobs if we target the workforce shortages there by providing professional services.

So in one sense the situation is not all that dismal provided-and provided is the key word-the state governments empower their people with investments in education and health and encourage enterprise at rural and urban agglomerates.

It is not a pipe dream. Because of improved literacy and investment in health and social sectors, India-once described as a basket case by the Malthusians-has emerged as a tech power, a major challenger to manufacturing hubs. At home, states like Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Mizoram and Himachal Pradesh have invested in education infrastructure. Those who invested in social infrastructure have shown a marked improvement in their ability to ramp up growth. Last year, young job aspirants from Bihar were beaten up in Assam and Maharashtra. As the demography morphs there will be greater migration within the country. States will have to rise to the challenge.

And there are options to match the potential. Uttar Pradesh and Bihar with a hugely skewed rural bias in the GSDP, for instance, could push for agro and food processing industries. Already the food bowl of India, they, along with Punjab and Haryana, could well be the food mart for the rest of the economy. Given its competitiveness, India can be a global player in the agricultural produce market. Just as Karnataka and Maharashtra have emerged as the hub of it and BPO services, other states could find their own keel and balance. It has now been proven beyond doubt by economists like Robert Barro that growth is enhanced by higher schooling, lower government consumption, better law and order and improvements in terms of trade.

The moot point then is whether the political regimes and the bureaucracy awake to the challenges facing them. They say hindsight is 20-20. The demographic projections offer policy makers an opportunity to enhance their foresight.