The World Health Organization (WHO)’s estimate of excess deaths due to COVID-19 in India triggered several responses. Among them was the response of several State Health Ministers, who slammed the WHO and asserted that India has a “robust, legal and transparent system for data collection and COVID mortality surveillance”.
This new-found love for the Civil Registration System (CRS), which was rarely being used as a source of vital statistics, is surprising. The claim was not even made by the Office of the Registrar General of India (ORGI), which is well aware of the drawbacks of the system, but by politicians. As such, I thought it necessary to place in the public domain some of the facts relating to the quality and completeness of birth and death registrations in the country.
