Sample registration in India

India's ad hoc sample registration scheme for obtaining current estimates of rural birth and death rates for the whole country is being implemented quite rapidly. Five states have 140 sample units, and eleven states will have from 20 to 100 units in the study depending upon the stage of implementation by March, 1967.Essential elements of the project for each unit are: (1) continuous registration of vital events by a paid part-time local enumerator, (2) a six-month household survey to detect births and deaths which occurred during the previous six months, and (3) matching events from registration and surveys and field recheck of unmatched events to obtain the "best" count of real number of events. Preliminary results in a non-random sample indicate that the crude birth and death rates are around 37.1 and 15.7 per 1,000, respectively, for India's rural population, but these probably will be found to be on the low side.Most of the problems of implementation are operational or administrative rather than statistical: (1) For various reasons, some states are slow in agreeing to assume financial and other responsibilities for the scheme. (2) In many states, even after the scheme has been accepted, there are delays in recruiting the staff, training, and so forth. (3) The most serious problem in the whole project is maintaining control of field operations well enough at each stage to insure that prescribed instructions and methodology are being followed.Experience in India indicates that staged implementation of such projects is highly desirable when trained staff are limited. There still are a number of methodological problems which must be tested as the sample registration evolves. Sample registration is one of the first steps in the Indian program to. develop an adequate vital statistics system. Exploratory studies to measure completeness of civil registration are being done now in an effort to develop means of using civil registration data alone for measurement of vital rates.