Ahead of the UN General Assembly meeting for reviewing a decade of progress on Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) over September 20-22, civil society groups have urged the government to speed up its efforts to bring down India's alarming child mortality rate.

In an open letter to the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Save the Children, an NGO working in over 120 countries on child rights, has urged him to make child health in India a priority. The letter questioned India’s track record on child mortality, “Can high rates of child and maternal mortality be consigned to India’s past or will it remain an indelible stain on its future?”        

Save the Children published a study on September 6 that found that India continued to perform poorly in terms of protecting child health and preventing child mortality. "Of the 26 million children born in India in a year, 1.83 million still die before their fifth birthday and half within a month of being born."

It also said that "children under five from the poorest communities are three times more likely to die than those from high income quintiles".

Civil society organisations, government officials, donors, academia, and technical experts met in Delhi on September 8th to discuss the report; it was subsequently decided to send an open letter to the PM.

The letter questioned India’s lackadaisical approach in safeguarding child health. “As the country with the highest number of child deaths anywhere in the world, India has a particular obligation to demonstrate leadership on this issue.”

The letter expressed concern over the level of proposed Indian representation at UN General Assembly meeting on the issue of child and maternal health. Neither the Prime Minister nor the Union health minister will be representing India at the meeting in New York, Governance Now had earlier reported.

“It is imperative that you, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, join other world leaders by leading the Indian delegation and prioritising child and maternal health at the UN Summit,” the letter said.

“The target year for achieving MDGs is 2015 and India is performing badly in the goal of child mortality (Goal 4 commitment of MDGs). India has almost accepted that MDG-4 can’t be achieved,” Ben Hewitt, project director – newborn child survival, Save the Children, told Governance Now.

The MDG 4 calls for a two-thirds reduction in under-five mortality between 1990 and 2015 which was committed by the world leaders at the UN platform in New York.

“We need to make more noise in this regard and resonate it,” said Vinod Paul, head – department of pediatrics, AIIMS.

Rajiv Tandon, special adviser of the Save the Children, urged government to set up a parliamentary committee on reducing child mortality.

The letter suggested that the PM 'lead a clear process throughout 2011 to review child and maternal health strategies, resources and implementation as part of the consultation about the 12th Five Year plan.’

Save the Children plans to submit a 'shadow report' on the conditions of child mortality in India before Sept 20 to the PM.

'Will the Prime Minister act' is the million dollar question.


Some of the highlights of Save the Children (September 6) report titled ‘A Fair Chance at Life’:

•    Of the 26 million children born in India every year, approximately 1.83 million children die before their 5th birthday.

•    5.3 lakh children under 5 died in the lowest income quintile in India in comparison to 1.78 lakh among the highest wealth quintile in 2008.

•    The rate of decline in under five mortality rate between 1997-98 to 2005-06 among the lowest income quintile is 22.69 percent compared to 34.37 percent among the high income quintile for the same period.

•    The under five mortality rate in Kerala is 14 deaths per 1000 live births. This stands at a sharp contrast to Madhya Pradesh at 92 per 1000, 91 per 1000 for Uttar Pradesh and 89 per 1000 for Orissa.