logo
India sees improvement in maternal, child health indicators, says 2021 SRS report

India sees improvement in maternal, child health indicators, says 2021 SRS report

The Print10-05-2025

The Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR) has declined by 37 points from 130 per lakh live births in 2014-16 to 93 in 2019-21, the statement mentioned, citing the Sample Registration System (SRS) Report 2021 released by the Registrar General of India (RGI) on Wednesday.
New Delhi, May 10 (PTI) India has witnessed a significant improvement in key maternal and child health indicators between 2014 and 2021, according to a Health Ministry statement.
The Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) has dropped from 39 per 1000 live births in 2014 to 27 per 1000 live births in 2021.
The Neonatal Mortality Rate (NMR) has declined from 26 per 1000 live births in 2014 to 19 per 1000 live births in 2021. Under-Five Mortality Rate (U5MR) has also improved, dropping from 45 in 2014 to 31 per 1000 live births in 2021.
The Sex Ratio at Birth also improved between 2014 and 2031, getting better from 899 to 913, respectively. Total Fertility Rate is consistent at 2.0 in 2021, which is a notable progress from 2.3 in 2014.
According to the SRS 2021 Report, eight states have already attained the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) target of MMR (less than or equal to 70 by 2030). Kerala (20), Maharashtra (38), Telangana (45), Andhra Pradesh (46), Tamil Nadu (49), Jharkhand (51), Gujarat (53), and Karnataka (63) are among the top performers.
The Ministry also said that 12 states and UT have already attained SDG target of U5MR (less than 25 by 2030): Kerala (8), Delhi (14), Tamil Nadu (14), Jammu & Kashmir (16), Maharashtra (16), West Bengal (20), Karnataka (21), Punjab (22), Telangana (22), Himachal Pradesh (23), Andhra Pradesh (24) and Gujarat (24).
Besides, six states and one UT have already attained the SDG target of NMR (less than 12 by 2030): Kerala (4), Delhi (8), Tamil Nadu (9), Maharashtra (11), Jammu & Kashmir (12) and Himachal Pradesh (12).
Further, India's progress in the reduction of maternal and child mortality indicators has outpaced global averages, the Ministry said in its statement.
As per the current United Nations Maternal Mortality Estimation Inter-agency Group (UN-MMEIG) Report 2000-2023, India's MMR has reduced by 23 points from 2020 to 2023.
By this achievement, MMR of India has now declined by 86 per cent compared to the global reduction of 48 per cent over the past 33 years from 1990 to 2023, the statement said.
Significant achievement has been highlighted in the reduction of Child Mortality in India in the United Nations Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation (UN-IGME) Report 2024.
The UN-IGME report said India achieved a 78 per cent decline in the Under-Five Mortality Rate (U5MR), surpassing the global reduction of 61 per cent; 70 per cent decline in the Neonatal Mortality Rate (NMR) compared to 54% globally, and 71 per cent decline in the Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) compared to 58 per cent globally, over the past 33 years from 1990 to 2023. PTI PLB AMJ AMJ
This report is auto-generated from PTI news service. ThePrint holds no responsibility for its content.

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

India's active Covid cases near 6,500; ‘newly emerging XFG variant' found, says INSACOG
India's active Covid cases near 6,500; ‘newly emerging XFG variant' found, says INSACOG

Hindustan Times

time16 hours ago

  • Hindustan Times

India's active Covid cases near 6,500; ‘newly emerging XFG variant' found, says INSACOG

Amid the Covid-19 surge in India, the total number of active cases are nearing the 6,500 mark, with some of the infections being of a newly emerging variant, as per a news agency PTI report, citing INSACOG. As per the latest data released by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, a total of 6,491 active cases have been recorded across India. Based on the state-wise data, Kerala remains the worst-hit with a total of 1,957 active cases, with seven new cases reported in the last 24 hours. Amid this surge, the Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG) has reportedly said that over 160 active cases have been attributed to the new XFG variant. As per the PTI report, INSACOG data suggests a total of 163 samples tested positive for the XFG variant. These were detected in Maharashtra with 89 cases, followed by Tamil Nadu (16), Kerala (15), and Gujarat (11). Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal reported six cases each. The XFG variant is a descendant of the Omicron subvariant of the coronavirus. As per a study issued by The Lancet, the variant was initially detected in Canada. However, the XFG variant, "originating from LF.7 and LP.8.1.2, harbours four key spike mutations (His445Arg, Asn487Asp, Gln493Glu, and Thr572Ile) and has achieved rapid global spread," the study added. As per The Lancet, the XFG variant also displays "strong immune evasion," which allows the virus to survive and spread as it manages to evade the body's natural defences. As per the data issued by the Health Ministry on Monday, India has a total of 6,491 active cases. After Kerala, which is the worst-hit state in the new surge, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Gujarat, Delhi, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Haryana have detected a high number of active cases. While the union ministry has not recorded any deaths in the past 24 hours, a total of 65 deaths have been reported since January 1, 2025. As per MoHFW data, these 65 deaths were reported in Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Kerala, Karnataka, Gujarat and Delhi.

India's heatwaves worsening, but no one knows how many dying
India's heatwaves worsening, but no one knows how many dying

The Print

timea day ago

  • The Print

India's heatwaves worsening, but no one knows how many dying

An investigation by PTI reveals that disjointed, outdated reporting systems are obscuring the true toll, weakening both public awareness and policy action. 'The family rushed him to the hospital,' says Majida Begum, a sanitation worker who witnessed it. 'But he was declared dead on arrival. They had no proof that he died due to heat, so they were not given any compensation.' His death was never officially counted, just one of the countless lives lost in India's intensifying heatwaves that go unrecorded and uncompensated. New Delhi, Jun 9 (PTI) On a scorching May afternoon last year, a ragpicker in Delhi's Ghazipur area collapsed from heat exhaustion. Accurate data on heat-related deaths helps identify who is most at risk. Without it, the government cannot plan effectively, create targeted policies or take timely action to save lives. But behind the missing numbers are real people, many poor and undocumented, whose deaths routinely slip through the cracks of India's incoherent reporting system. Currently, at least three separate datasets attempt to monitor heatstroke or heat-related deaths. The two most-commonly cited in the media are maintained by the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) under the health ministry and the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) under the home ministry. The India Meteorological Department (IMD) also carries figures on deaths caused by 'heatwaves' in its annual reports, drawing data primarily from media coverage. However, these three sources report widely-varying numbers. For instance, data obtained through an RTI query from the health ministry shows 3,812 heat-related deaths recorded between 2015 and 2022 under the Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP), managed by the NCDC. In contrast, NCRB figures, cited in Parliament many times by Union Earth Sciences Minister Jitendra Singh, put the number at 8,171 deaths from 'heat/sunstroke' during the same period. Meanwhile, the IMD's annual reports record 3,436 deaths due to 'heatwave' between 2015 and 2022. While the NCDC and the IMD have already released the figures for 2023 and 2024, the NCRB is yet to publish the data for these years. Since 2015, the health ministry has been collecting data on heat illness and deaths from April to July. In 2019, this was extended to March through July, covering 23 states. The NCRB has recorded heatstroke deaths since 1995, listing them as 'accidental deaths from forces of nature' since around 2010. PTI spoke to government officials and healthcare-policy experts to understand the large discrepancies between these datasets. A senior Delhi Police official explained that the NCRB data largely reflects the number of unattended individuals found dead by police at public spaces, homes and elsewhere. Such bodies are taken to hospitals where doctors conduct autopsies to determine the cause of death. According to the NCRB, 730 people died from 'heat/sunstroke' in 2022, 374 in 2021 and 530 in 2020. By contrast, the NCDC data shows just 33 heat-related deaths in 2022, none in 2021 and four in 2020, as many states failed to report their figures. These states included Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Punjab, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu. A health ministry official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the data from the NCRB and the NCDC are 'not directly comparable' because they originate from different sources. 'The NCDC reports deaths of patients who come to hospital OPDs or are admitted. But if a person dies and is brought for autopsy, that data goes to the forensic medicine department, which may not always share the information with the NCDC,' the official said. He acknowledged the existence of multiple datasets on heat deaths in India and noted that 'none of those alone gives the full picture'. 'While knowing the actual number of heat deaths is important for policy making, confirming such deaths is difficult even with health ministry guidelines,' he added. The official said surveillance systems often capture only a fraction of actual cases for other communicable and non-communicable diseases. 'We have some numbers, but never the full picture,' he said. One major challenge in data collection is the absence of an electronic record system. 'Healthcare facilities still enter data manually. Confirming heat-related deaths is already difficult and manual data entry makes accurate reporting even harder,' said another official. Though the Integrated Health Information Platform (IHIP) enables digital submission of surveillance data like that of heat-related deaths, the hospital staff manually enter the information into online forms. There is no automated data transfer from hospital records. Officials also said that while states are mandated to report data, compliance is poor. For example, the hospital staff sometimes omit reporting if temperatures drop due to cloudy weather. A senior doctor from a central government-run hospital in Delhi, speaking anonymously, said most hospitals are understaffed which hampers proper data collection and timely reporting. The doctor also alleged that authorities may suppress death figures to avoid compensation liabilities. At the India Heat Summit 2025 in May, health ministry Advisor Soumya Swaminathan highlighted the weaknesses in the country's death-reporting systems. 'I have been saying this since my time at the Indian Council of Medical Research — death-reporting systems need strengthening because they provide the best source for the government and policymakers to understand causes of death, which should inform policy,' she said. Abhiyant Tiwari, Lead for Climate Resilience and Health at NRDC India, said attributing deaths directly to heat remains a global challenge, not just in India. Tiwari, who has contributed to heat action plans at city and district levels, said the all-cause mortality data is more reliable for assessing vulnerability and setting early-warning thresholds, as it captures the total number of deaths during heat events, not only those officially classified as heatstroke deaths. Many heat-related deaths go unrecorded or are misclassified as heart attacks or other causes. By comparing mortality during heatwaves to normal periods, experts estimate that the excess deaths are likely attributable to extreme heat, he said. He stressed the need to improve the reporting of the all-cause mortality data and suggested appointing a single department responsible for its collection and dissemination. As climate change intensifies heatwaves, Avinash Chanchal, deputy programme director at Greenpeace South Asia, called for urgent reforms in how heat-related deaths are recorded. 'Discrepancies between departments and widespread underreporting mean the true toll of extreme heat often remains hidden. The government must understand that hiding or ignoring the true numbers delays the urgent action needed to address heat,' he said. Until India fixes its fractured data system, the dead will remain just a number or worse, not counted at all, Chanchal said. PTI GVS RC This report is auto-generated from PTI news service. ThePrint holds no responsibility for its content.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store