Sample registration in India

Abstract The Sample Registration Project in India is designed to obtain current estimates of birth and death rates for the whole country. It is being implemented quite rapidly. Rural and urban areas in all states and Union Territories in India will be covered before the close of 1969. Bigger states have 150 sample units in rural areas and 60 to 100 units in urban areas. Essential elements of the project for each unit are: (1) continuous enumeration of births and deaths in respect of usual resident population by a paid part-time local enumerator; (2) a six-month household survey to detect births and deaths which occurred to the usual resident population during the previous six months; and (3) manual matching of all event from enumeration and surveys and field re-check of unmatched events to obtain the 'best' count of real number of events. The results of a full-scale sample in four states and pilot sample in ten states indicate that the crude birth and death rates are around 40 and 18 per 1,000, respectively, for India's rural population. Most of the problems of implementation are operational or administrative rather than statistical. The main problem in the whole project is to maintain control of field operations well enough at each stage to ensure that prescribed instructions and methodology are being followed; particularly in the six-month survey. Experience in India indicates that sample registration techniques are capable of providing reliable birth and death rates in similar conditions in developing countries. However, there are still a number of methodological problems which must be tested as the sample registration evolves.