Baseline Survey Report 2004-Age at Marriage, Sex Selection at Birth, Personal Habits Morbidity and Disease Pattern
Contents: Preface. Executive summary. Data highlights. 1. Introduction. 2. Household characteristics. 3. Population composition. 4. Proximate determinants of fertility. 5. Morbidity and personal habits. Appendices.
From the preface: "The Sample Registration System (SRS) has the distinction of being the reliable source in the country to provide reliable and continuous source of demographic data on fertility and mortality. The need for dependable demographic data in the country as felt soon after independence which witnessed the heralding of the era of Five Year Plans, the registration of births and deaths in India was on a voluntary basis till 1969 and there was no uniformity in statistical returns resulting in both under-registration and incomplete coverage. With the enactment of Registration of Births and Deaths (RBD) Act, 1969, registration of births and deaths was unified and made compulsory throughout the country. At the current level of registration at the national level--62 per cent for births and 58 percent for deaths--it is not possible to generate data on vital statistics. As a result, SRS has become and remains the only source to provide estimates of fertility and mortality at the state and national level since its inception in 1969-70.
The SRS sample is replaced after the conclusion of each decennial census. In keeping with this tradition, SRS sample has been replaced in 2004 after the completion of Census 2001. A baseline survey is undertaken of the sample households to collect information on individuals in each household besides information on household details. In the Baseline Survey 2004, the information to be collected has been expanded for both the categories. Not only that, a nine digit unique identification code has been assigned to each usual resident of every household. This will enable linking of records, aggregation of data at various levels besides cross-classification of determinants of fertility and mortality, cohort analysis, etc. Another significant change which has been made is that unlike in the past, estimates will now be generated at the Natural Division Level--which is a group of contiguous districts sharing similar topography, rainfall, climatic conditions etc. This would be besides the conventional presentation of estimates at the state and national level by sex and rural/urban place of residence. The verbal autopsy instrument has been added as a permanent feature in the SRS sample of 2004. By virtue of this, the report on causes of death would be a regular feature henceforth which will be of real help to the researchers and planners to get an idea of the burden of diseases upto the natural division level.
The present report on the baseline survey is more comprehensive and contains valuable information on not only the regular items but also on several new ones such as, school attendance, proportion of children aged 0-4 years staying away from one or both the parents (a proxy to orphanhood), sex selection at birth, knowledge and practice of family planning methods, morbidity, personal habits--smoking, drinking and chewing paan, and food habits--vegetarianism vs. non-vegetarianism. This information will be extremely useful besides serving as a benchmark for all future data to follow from SRS till 2013-2014."
