By Madan Lamsal

Ever since the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) started to make the findings of the national census public, people have started wondering whether Nepal is really overpopulated. People have started to ask the same question to several experts and not so experts, politicians and economists. And the answers that come about are very interesting. 

Some samples of the answers: Nepali Congress leaders say: Nepal is not overpopulated. The reason as furnished by a leftist politician is that, for capitalists like the Nepali Congres ,the bigger the population, the higher the voter base. So the population is less until the Congress gets enough votes to form the government.

If you ask a Hindu or a Muslim or a Christian fundamentalist, the answer is still no. Because, to religious leaders, the fear of being outnumbered by the other religion is persistent and they believe that Pashupatinath, Allah or Christ will come to feed any size of population.

But, an immigration officer is most likely to say yes, Nepal is overpopulated ! This is because he must be getting tired of processing thousands travel documents of youth going abroad everyday.

But the economists are unlikely to say either yes or no. They will only say: the moment a country has overpopulation, it will not be able to sustain any addition in the population. Some of them may even advise you to read Danish economist Ester Boserup who made strong case in support of population growth for the economic benefit of the country.

Whatever the people of different background may say, It is futile to worry about the size of the population. Because, more people, more production, more money, more consumption, more profit to the companies and more revenue to the government and more donations to the political parties and opportunity for more extortions to the affiliates of political parties of different hues and colours.

Even with a population close to 30 million we have been able to feed ourselves. We don't need to worry about gainful employment here within the country, as overseas employment will be in abundance as long as Nepalis agree to work for the pay just enough to foot the travel bill and payback the loan gotten to fly abroad, after five years of work.

This means your country's income grows only when your people go abroad and send in money from there. That was so simple to understand for our forefathers who started the system of Lahure, i.e. sending people abroad (Lahore at that time) for earning. The same is being done today. And this should be expanded. This requires our population to increase further so that more people will go abroad and Nepal will earn more.

Nepali economy is live and kicking just because of a growing population. Not only migrant workers, see it from every angle, the population growth is a must for economic growth. As more babies are born,  the more diapers will be sold and there will be higher profits for such companies and a bigger pay rise to their  employees. Therefore, clearly, the hue and cry of overpopulation in Nepal is an absolute anti-thesis to country's economic growth and people's well-being.