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Wednesday, May 13, 2009
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Drop in infant mortality rate in the country

Aarti Dhar

Madhya Pradesh is the worst performer
Rural-urban divide visible in data

NEW DELHI: The infant mortality rate (IMR) in the country went down by two percentage points from 57 to 55 per 1,000 live births between 2006 and 2007.

While the overall figure has shown a decrease, the number has gone up in Chandigarh, Uttarakhand, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and some northeastern States, according to the latest figures released by the Registrar-General of India as per the Sample Registration System (SRS).

The IMR has gone up from 23 to 27 per 1,000 live births in Chandigarh and from 31 to 34 in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. In Uttarakhand, the number of children dying per 1,000 live births has gone up from 43 to 48, in Manipur from 11 to 12 and in Meghalaya from 53 to 56. Similarly, the IMR figure has shown an uptrend in Nagaland to 21 from 20 in the previous survey, from 33 to 34 in Sikkim, and from 36 to 39 in Tripura.

Lowest IMR

Strangely, while Manipur has an IMR of 11, both in rural and urban areas, the latest statistics show that the figure has gone up to 13 in rural areas and slumped to nine in urban areas. However, it continues to have the lowest IMR followed by Kerala at 13.

The worst performers, despite an improvement, continue to be Madhya Pradesh at 72 followed by Orissa at 71, Uttar Pradesh at 69, Assam at 66 and Rajasthan at 65. The other States whose performance is not so satisfactory are Chhattisgarh (59), Bihar (58), Haryana (55), Gujarat (52) and Jammu and Kashmir (51).

The rural-urban divide is also visible in the data. The IMR in rural India is 61, while it is 37 in urban areas.

Reliable estimates

The SRS is a large-scale demographic survey for providing reliable annual estimates of birthrate, death rate and fertility and mortality indicators at the national and sub-national levels.

Initiated on a pilot basis by the Registrar-General in a few States in 1964-65, it became fully operational during 1969-70 with about 3,700 sample units.

Field investigation

The field investigation consists of continuous enumeration of births and deaths in selected sample units by resident part-time enumerators, generally anganwadi workers and teachers, and an independent survey every six months by SRS supervisors. The data obtained by these two independent functionaries are matched and the unmatched or partially matched events re-verified in the field.

The sample unit in a rural area is a village or a segment if the village population is 2,000 or more. In urban areas, the sample unit is a census enumeration block with a population ranging from 750 to 1,000.

Corrections and Clarifications

The first sentence in a report "Drop in infant mortality rate in the country" (May 13, 2009) said "The infant mortality rate (IMR) in the country went down by two percentage points from 57 to 55 per 1000 live births between 2006 and 2007." It should read either "The infant mortality rate (IMR) in the country went down by 2 points from 57 to 55 per 1000 live births between 2006 and 2007", or "The infant mortality rate (IMR) in the country went down by 0.2 percentage points from 5.7 to 5.5 per 100 live births between 2006 and 2007."

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