India's total population is now 1.21 billion

NEW DELHI: India's total population stands at 1.21 billion, which is 17.7 per cent more than the last decade, and growth of females was higher than that of males.

According to the final census released by Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde today, India's total population as on March 1, 2011 is 1,210,726,932 or 1.21 billion -- an increase of 181.96 million persons in absolute number of population during 2001-11.

There was an increase of 90.97 million males and increase of 90.99 million females. The growth rate of females was 18.3 per cent which is higher than males -- 17.1 per cent.

India's population grew by 17.7 per cent during 2001-11, against 21.5 per cent in the previous decade. Among the major states, highest decadal growth in population has been recorded in Bihar (25.4 per cent) while 14 states and Union Territories have recorded population growth above 20 per cent.

Altogether, 833.5 million persons live in rural areas as per Census 2011, which was more than two-third of the total population, while 377.1 million persons live in urban areas.

Urban proportion has gone up from 17.3 per cent in 1951 to 31.2 per cent in 2011. Empowered Action Group (EAG) states have lower urban proportion (21.1 per cent) in comparison to non EAG states (39.7 per cent).

Highest proportion of urban population is in NCT Delhi (97.5 per cent). Top five states in share of urban population are Goa (62.2 per cent), Mizoram (52.1 per cent), Tamil Nadu (48.4 per cent), Kerala (47.7 per cent) and Maharashtra (45.2 per cent).