India to Fail UN Goals for Poverty, Infant Mortality

In India the milestone is to bring down infant mortality rate (IMR) to 27 per 1,000 lives. However, the target that is expected to be achieved is 43 per 1,000 by 2015.

According to the Statistical Year Book 2013 released by minister of statistics and programme implementation Srikant Kumar Jena, the child mortality rate would be at 52 per 1000 live births. As per the target set, India needs to reduce the mortality rate for children below five to 42 per 1,000 live births by the year 2015. With the present estimate of 52 India is lagging behind.

The latest data does show a positive trend with the maternal mortality rate (MMR) which would be brought down to 139 per lakh births by 2015 from the recorded number of 437 in 1990, however the country is hoping to reduce the MMR from 1990 to 2015 to 109 per lakh births.

The report informed, “Malnutrition continues to be a major hurdle,” as reported by TNN. India shows a slow pace of eliminating the severe effect of malnutrition, as seen by the proportion of underweight children under the age of three years in the country.

In 1990, an estimated rate of 52 percent of children below three years were underweight, this proportion needs to be reduced to 26 percent in 2015. However the proportion of underweight children has declined from 43 percent in 1998 to 40 percent in 2005.

Also Read: Only 6 Indian States to Reduce Child Mortality by 2015