Crude death rate, India

Deaths during the year per 1,000 mid-year population.

Numerator

Deaths during the calendar year in the SRS sample

Denominator

Mid-year population of the SRS sample (thousands)

Methodology

The Sample Registration System (SRS) is ORGI's large-scale demographic survey: in about 8,800 randomly selected villages and urban blocks (8,839 sample units covering about 9.0 million people in 2024, roughly 0.6% of the population) a resident part-time enumerator records births and deaths continuously, and an independent supervisor conducts a retrospective half-yearly survey. The two records are matched and unmatched events re-verified in the field (dual record system), which makes SRS India's reference source for vital rates at state level, since civil registration remains incomplete in several states. The sample is redrawn after each census; the frame in use from reference year 2014 is based on Census 2011. Source: SRS Bulletin for the reference year, Table 1 ('Estimated Birth Rate, Death Rate, Natural Growth Rate and Infant Mortality Rate'), Total column, for India and all 36 States/UTs. Each value is taken from the Bulletin for its own year; the same figure reprinted in later Statistical Report trend tables is not re-ingested, so a value changes only if ORGI re-issues that Bulletin (corrigenda are re-uploaded in place and recorded as revisions). IHO stores the total (rural and urban combined) for V1; SRS also publishes rural and urban figures, and for some rates figures by sex, which are not yet stored.

Caveats

This is a crude rate: it divides events by the whole population, so it depends on the population's age structure as well as on underlying risk. States with older populations (Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab) have higher crude death rates and lower crude birth rates for reasons of age alone. A higher crude death rate in an ageing State does not mean worse health; compare States on life expectancy or on age-specific rates instead. Reference years 2020–2021 cover the COVID-19 pandemic: deaths rose sharply in 2021 (India's crude death rate was 7.5 against 6.0 in 2020), and fieldwork was disrupted. Smaller States and Union Territories have small samples (in 2024 Lakshadweep had 14 sample units and about 15,000 people; Mizoram, Nagaland and Sikkim 45–65 units), so their year-to-year movements are often noise; confidence intervals published in the Bulletin are wide for them, and SRS itself suppresses some of their breakdowns. Manipur's 2023 and 2024 estimates are based on 130 of its 165 sample units because of the field situation in the State; they are marked low-sample. The 2023 Bulletin was re-issued with a corrigendum (India's death rate by sex in Table 4); Table 1 values were unchanged.