India's maternal mortality records significant decline since 2014, says Union health minister 

The ORGI, under the Ministry of Home Affairs, publishes estimates on fertility and mortality using the Sample Registration System (SRS), which is a large-scale demographic survey for providing reliable annual estimates of Infant mortality rate, birth rate, death rate and other fertility and mortality indicators at the national and sub-national levels.

The Ministry of Home Affairs on November 28 released a ‘Special Bulletin on Maternal Mortality in India 2018-20’. As per the latest data, the MMR of India during the period of 2018-20 decreased to 97, as compared to the MMR in 2017-19, which was at 103. In 2015-17, India’s MMR was 122, while it was at 130 during the period of 2014-16.

In the recent data, some states have recorded low MMR as compared to previous data. Southern states — Andhra Pradesh (45), Telangana (43), Karnataka (69), Kerala (19) and Tamil Nadu (54) recorded the lowest MMR.

However, the situation in some states, including Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and Assam has remained poor despite a countrywide improvement. The MMR in the three states was recorded above 150, which is much higher than the United States’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) target.

In Uttar Pradesh, the MMR is 167, in Madhya Pradesh it increased to 173, as compared to 163 in previous ratio during the period of 2017-19. The MMR in Haryana was recorded at 110 as compared to 96 in the previous data.

As per the ORGI, Maternal mortality in a region is a measure of reproductive health of women in the area. MMR is defined as the number of maternal deaths during a given time period per 100,000 live births during the same time period. United States have set a target of SDG, which aims to reduce the global maternal mortality ratio to less than 70 per 100,000 live births.