India's 2030 targets of reducing child mortality

According to the Sustainable Development Goal 3 (SDG3) of World Health Organization (WHO), all countries should aim to reduce neonatal mortality to 12 deaths per 1,000 live births per year, and under-five mortality to a maximum of 25.

The study conducted by Jayanta Bora and Nandita Saikia from Austria-based non-profit International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, used the latest (2015-16) and last round (2005-06) data from the National Family Health Survey, the survey has full birth history of women aged 15-49.

Child mortality status in India

The study conducted to evaluate neonatal and under-five mortality at a district and state level, indicates that at least half of the districts of Indian are still not on track to reduce the mortality rates of newborns.

With around 1.1 million deaths per year among children under five and newborns, India still holds top position in child deaths around the world.

The report indicates that various measures adopted by India have cut the number of deaths of under-fives by around half in in the past 23 years but the neonatal deaths still remains around 2.4 times higher than the target.

The researchers found that just 9 per cent of districts in India, have so far reached the SDG3 targets for neonatal mortality, while 14 per cent reaching the targets for under-five mortality.

Most populous states like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh are most affected and most of their districts will fail to achieve the SDG3 goal on neonatal mortality.

Poorer states of north-central and eastern India are worst performing with mortality rates is still low in these areas.

Matching to the global trend, India too have the female neonatal mortality rate below than that of males, indicating gender discrimination.

While some districts of a particular state may already have achieved the Sustainable Development Goal 3 (SDG3) target 15 years in advance, some districts will not achieve this even by the 2030 target time.