India’s infant mortality rate falls but pace of change slows

India’s infant mortality rate (IMR) has fallen from 42 in 2012 to 33 in 2017. However, the pace of change appears to have slowed down when compared to the five years before 2012, when it fell from 55 to 42. Given that India’s IMR is even today worse than those of South Asian neighbours Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal, the slowdown is worrying.

IMR or the number of babies below one year dying out of every 1,000 born alive — considered an important marker of a country’s health system — has been falling steadily for most regions of the world. The global average IMR is 29 and that for low and middle income countries, the category that India belongs to, is 34.

The IMR for the European region is 8, the same as Sri Lanka. In South Asia, India has also been overtaken by Bhutan, Bangladesh and Nepal with IMRs of 28, 29 and 30 respectively.


Data from the sample registration system (SRS) just released shows that while the rural IMR reduced marginally from the previous year, urban IMR remained the same for India as a whole. In Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Punjab and Uttarakhand, there was in fact a marginal increase in IMR in urban areas from 2016 with the highest increase in urban Gujarat and Karnataka going from 19 to 22 in both states. In the case of urban Gujarat, the IMR for females went up from 19 to 23, higher than the increase for males.

Madhya Pradesh and Assam had the worst IMR of 47 and 44 respectively, while Kerala and Tamil Nadu recorded the lowest IMR of 10 and 16 respectively, among the bigger states. If smaller states and UTs are included, the lowest IMR was recorded in Nagaland and Goa — 7 and 9 respectively.

Among states with the highest IMR in 2012, Odisha and Uttar Pradesh showed the biggest improvement with IMR falling for both from 53 to 41 between 2012 and 2017. However, among all states, Jammu and Kashmir showed the biggest improvement with its IMR dropping from 39 to 23.

With IMR falling to 33, India is in the company of countries like Tajikistan (33), Botswana (34), Rwanda (32) and South Africa (32). China’s IMR is 9.

In the neighbourhood, the only countries doing worse than India were Pakistan and Myanmar which had IMRs of 66 and 43 respectively.