Birth and death registrations in India were more than 99% of estimated births and deaths together for the first time in India in 2024, according to the Civil Registration System (CRS) report for the year released on Wednesday by the Office of the Registrar General of India (ORGI), which works under the ministry of home affairs.
The CRS records all births and deaths registered in India. The number of such registered births and deaths seen in the CRS reports has always lagged the births and deaths estimated using the fertility and mortality rates from the survey-based Sample Registration System (SRS). This makes the level of registration of both births and deaths breaching the 99% mark a significant landmark.
The CRS report shows that 25,473,389 births and 8,938,301 deaths were registered in India in 2024, 1.1% and 3.2% more than in 2023 respectively. However, a more interesting finding of the report is what these registrations signify. The number of births and deaths per thousand population as estimated by the 2024 SRS report – it was released on May 21 — applied to the population projection for 2024 suggests that there were 25,709,853 births and 8,991,424 births and deaths in the year. This implies that 99.1% and 99.4% of births and deaths were registered — the first time both numbers crossing the 99% mark.
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To be sure, level of registration can appear good even if the SRS is underestimating birth and death rates or the population projections are underestimating population. However, 2024 levels of registration (LOR) still suggest a big improvement. The recent history of the LOR shows this clearly. The LOR of births and deaths was 86.6% and 72.5% in 2014, which improved gradually to 94.1% and 95.1% in 2019. The lockdown affected pandemic years of 2020 and 2021 saw birth LOR plunge to 91.8% and 91.7%, but death LOR shoot up to 99.9% and 99.7%. Birth LOR was 96.5% and 98.4% in 2022 and 2023 and death LOR was 92.2% and 97.2%.
Moreover, while the national average was nearing 100%, some states continued to languish. Birth LOR was in the 80%-90% range in six states: Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Chhattisgarh, Kerala, and Uttar Pradesh. Death LOR was in this range in Uttar Pradesh and Assam; and 50.7% and 62.1% in Jharkhand and Bihar.
The CRS report, however, cautions against reading state-level LOR mechanically. “The level of registration so calculated is very high for some of the smaller States/Union Territories either due to the lower estimates of vital events than the actual and or due to the fact that SRS estimates of vital events are based on the place of usual residence while events are registered at the place of occurrence irrespective of the place of residence,” the report said.
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To be sure, a high LOR at the national level is not the only good news from the 2024 CRS. Registered deaths without medical attention decreased from 53.4% in 2023 to 52.5% in 2024. On the other hand, institutional births increased from 74.7% in 2023 to 79.4% in 2024, the highest since 2019, when it was 81.2%. To be sure, the NFHS data for 2023-24, released on May 29, put institutional births at 90.6% in the year.
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