Impact of Population, Urbanisation and Globalisation on Environment in North East Region of India / Ram Krishna Mandal

The North-Eastern Region (NER) comprises the states of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura. Geographically, the region is covering an area of 2.55.037 sq. km. and contains 4.04 per cent of country's population, of which 70 per cent is occupied by the forest, hills and mountains which virtually surrounds the region on all sides, and this is nearly 8 per cent of total geographical area of the country. The primary object of development is to satisfy the essential material needs of the society, but not at the cost of local environment. When people change, the society to which belong also change, and the country moves with them too. But North-Eastern Region (NER) is an exception. Interestingly, this region is endowed with rich resources of land, water forests, and minerals. One would have thought that such a typical region would have been the cherished pride of the country; instead it is the most backward and most undeveloped one.

The region's growth rate of population is much higher than the national average. It is evident that there is uneven spatial distribution of population among the constituent states. One of the important problems, which create the hindrance on the way of economic development, is the problem of population explosion in the region. The population explosion caused by immigration pose serious threat on the natural resources of the region and hence on the economic development. Due to urbanisation, million hectares of forest were lost each year. The deterioration of the environmental quality is regarded as the inevitable consequence of urbanisation. The pattern and level of urbanization along with the growth of urban population in the entire region of North Eastern States creates an excessive pressure on the deforestation and thereby on the environment.

In the era of globalization, rapid socio-economic transformation has been taking place in the economy at international level. Globalization has brought good effect in every step of socio-economic life of people of North East but side by side it has bad effect also. It creates a vast economic disparity among the people. With improving the quality of the hill people, the quality of environment of the region is not possible.