India will meet under-five mortality rate target of 2015: Government

NEW DELHI: Belying concerns raised by several quarters, the government asserted that the country is well on course to meet the Millennium Development Goals of achieving the under-five mortality rate of 42 per 1,000 live births and infant mortality rate of 28 by next year.

Union Health Ministry officials said key interventions are being made under the National Health Mission to bring down the mortality rate of children across all the states.

These include promotion of institutional delivery, newborn care, capacity building by training doctors and other staff members.

With these interventions, India is likely to achieve the MDG4 target of under-five mortality rate of 42 per 1,000 live births by next year, the target date of the UN-led programme, the officials said.

MDG has set under-5 mortality rate goal for India at 42 per 1,000 live births and infant mortality rate at 28 per 1,000 live births.

The officials said Health Minister J P Nadda had recently said in Parliament that India would attain the targets if the current rate of reduction continued.

In 2012, under-five mortality rate was 52 and it should drop to 42 if the current trend of annual decline at 6.8 per cent continues.

The MDG target to reduce maternal mortality ratio by three quarters between 1990 and 2015 will also be almost met as it should come down to 141 next year against 560 in 1990. The MDG target is 140.

There have been reports of late, including some in well-known research journals, that India could miss some of these targets, prompting the government to tighten up its measures.