India's population census 2001 is the first in this millennium, and sixth after independence and fourteenth in the series of decennial census starting from 1872. The provisional census results of 2001 give information on the growth rate of population, changes in the sex ratio particularly the child sex ratio, literacy, urbanization, occupational structure of workers and slum demography.
India's population is tripled during the past 50 years (1951-2001) from 361 million to 1027 million, an increase of 666 million. The net increase in India's population in the last 10 years (1991-2001) was 181 million as compared to 163 million in the previous decade (1981-1991). The increase in India's population during, 1991-2001 is more than Brazil's population, the firth largest country in the world with 170 million population. The decadal population growth rate has marginally declined from 23.9 per cent during 1981-91 to 21.4 per cent during 1991-2001.