BHOPAL: The Centre for Advocacy has expressed serious concern over the high rate of infant mortality in Madhya Pradesh as revealed by the last sample registration data of Registrar General of India.

On the basis of the April 2005 sample registration data available from the Registrar General, the state coordinator of Centre for Advocacy, R.K. Sharma said that the infant mortality rate of Madhya Pradesh was 82 per 1000 childbirths. The Census figures show that about 19 lakh children are born every year in the State and if one were to take the infant mortality rate into account, more than 426 children were dying daily in the State, Mr. Sharma pointed out.

Citing the NFHS (National Family Health Survey) data, Mr. Sharma said that 498 women were dying out of 100,000 live births in the State due to pregnancy related complications. Again taking the live birth data as 19 lakhs based on the Census figures, he said that on an average more than 25 women were dying every day.

The survey revealed that more than 50 per cent of the people in the `beneficiary' category did not know about health schemes and 71.6 per cent people had never received free medicines.

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