Maternal and Child Mortality Rates in India: Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Targets and Achievements

Abstract

The Government of India is committed to achieve Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Agenda 2030 consisting of 17 goals and 169 targets, span­ning the three dimensions of economic, social and environmental development. Since the Government of India is the biggest entity with the most resources to ensure achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and targets that have been set, the legal and policy framework already in place in the country has to be critically reviewed to see how capable it is of achieving the SDGs and identify the gaps and challenges, if any, for rectification. In this context, the basic objective of the present paper is to review the efforts made by the Government of India for the development of health facilities throughout the country in order to achieve the targets of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), to examine the trends in the annual compound reduction rates in the selected Maternal and Child Mortality Rates in India during the first 7/8 years of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDP) period, project the Maternal and Child Mortality Rates based on the existing annual compound reduction rates up to the target year of 2030 and then compare the projected values of selected Maternal and Child Mortality Rates with the SDG targets fixed for achievement by 2030. The paper found that the Maternal Mortality Rate (MMR) has the annual compound reduction rate of 6.4%, Under 5 Mortality Rate (U5MR) has the annual compound reduction rate of 5.0%, Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) has the annual compound reduction rate of 4.9% and Neonatal Mortality Rate (NMR) has the annual compound reduction rate of 4.3% in India during the period between 2015 and 2021/2022. By assuming that the Government of India will continue its efforts to maintain the existing annual compound reduction rates in the Maternal and Child Mortality Rates during the remaining period of Sustainable Development Goals, the paper has projected that India is on the track of achieving the SDG targets of MMR at 70/lakh live births by 2025 (5 years before the target year), U5MR at 25/thousand live births by 2026 (4 years before the target year), IMR at 20/thousand live births by 2027 (3 years before the target year) and NMR at 12/thousand live births by the target year 2030.