{"id":186416,"date":"2022-05-25T20:37:49","date_gmt":"2022-05-25T15:07:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=186416"},"modified":"2022-05-25T20:37:49","modified_gmt":"2022-05-25T15:07:49","slug":"inadequacies-of-the-civil-registration-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/inadequacies-of-the-civil-registration-system\/","title":{"rendered":"Inadequacies of the Civil Registration System"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

News:<\/strong> Recently, the World Health Organization (WHO)\u2019s<\/strong> estimated excess deaths due to COVID-19 in India which has triggered several responses.<\/p>\n

What has been the government\u2019s response against WHO estimates?<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Various State Health Ministers<\/strong> slammed the WHO estimates. They asserted that India has a \u201crobust, legal and transparent system for data collection and COVID mortality surveillance\u201d, referred to as the Civil Registration System (CRS)<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

System for registration in India<\/strong><\/h5>\n

The Registration of Births and Deaths (RBD) Act, 1969 mandates the registration of births and deaths.<\/p>\n

The State governments are responsible for the establishment and management of the registration system.<\/p>\n

The Registrar General of India (RGI) coordinates and unifies the activities of registration.<\/p>\n

The Sample Registration System (SRS) is used for further analysis of the birth and death registration in India.<\/p>\n

A birth\/death should be registered within 21 days. After 21 days, birth\/death can be registered under the RBD Act with an order of a First-Class Magistrate<\/strong> issued after verifying the facts about the birth or death.<\/p>\n

What are the issues with India\u2019s registration system?<\/strong><\/h5>\n

The SRS figures are not available for the year 2020 in which Covid-19 hit India.<\/p>\n

Further, Past studies on the SRS indicate that the vital rates are underestimated by 2-3%.<\/p>\n

Further, 2020 annual reports<\/strong> have shown that the number of births and deaths registered one year after occurrence is quite high. For example, more than 15% of<\/strong> the births registered had occurred in earlier years in Uttarakhand, Jharkhand, Rajasthan and Assam. However, such a proportion of delayed registration was lower in case of deaths.<\/p>\n

Many deaths like female deaths<\/strong> and child deaths have low level of registration because the family may not require the death certificates<\/strong> for settling inheritance, insurance claims, etc. For example, Female deaths formed only 39.8% of the total registered deaths in 2020.<\/p>\n

Only about 20% of the deaths have a Medically Certified Cause of Death (MCCD<\/strong>) that conforms to the WHO standard. The State governments have not issued statutory notifications<\/strong> to increase the coverage of MCCD.<\/p>\n

Impact of COVID-19 on registration<\/strong><\/h5>\n

The Covid-19 lockdowns significantly affected the efficiency<\/strong> of the CRS in the following manner.<\/p>\n

One, the registrars<\/strong> could not work during lockdowns in many areas.<\/p>\n

Two, people<\/strong> could not travel to the registrar\u2019s office<\/strong> to report the births\/deaths that had occurred at home within the prescribed time.<\/p>\n

Three, in case of a delay in reporting, the procedure of getting an affidavit or a Magistrate\u2019s order<\/strong> as required under Section 13 of the RBD Act<\/strong> is a very cumbersome process.<\/p>\n

Four, the functionaries handling registration were deployed on COVID-19-related duties and could not register the events.<\/p>\n

It means a large number of births and deaths that had occurred in 2020 would have been reported for registration in 2021 or even later.<\/p>\n

Way Forward<\/strong><\/h5>\n

A robust system should be instituted to ensure the registration of almost every birth and death within a short time after its occurrence.<\/p>\n

COVID-19 may act as an eye-opener <\/strong>on the importance of the CRS. The CRS has several shortcomings<\/strong>. India does not have a robust system of registering births and deaths.<\/p>\n

While the law<\/strong> and a registration system<\/strong> are in place. The State governments should put in more effort to ensure that all births and deaths are registered and more deaths have medically certified causes<\/strong>. This would require coordinated action by several state departments.<\/p>\n

The data should be published in a timely manner so that it can aid in the formulation of evidence-based policies<\/strong> and programs<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Source<\/strong>: The post is based on an article \u201cInadequacies of the Civil Registration System<\/strong>\u201d published in the \u201cThe Hindu<\/strong>\u201d on 25th<\/sup> May 2022<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

News: Recently, the World Health Organization (WHO)\u2019s estimated excess deaths due to COVID-19 in India which has triggered several responses. What has been the government\u2019s response against WHO estimates? Various State Health Ministers slammed the WHO estimates. They asserted that India has a \u201crobust, legal and transparent system for data collection and COVID mortality surveillance\u201d,… Continue reading Inadequacies of the Civil Registration System<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10328,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[212,10498],"class_list":["post-186416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-gs-paper-2","tag-the-hindu","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10328"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=186416"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186416\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}