Agency : UNICEF, New Delhi

The first Conference of Ministers in Charge of Civil Registration was convened by ESCAP at Bangkok in December 2014. This meeting called for establishing a universal and responsive civil registration and vital statistics system (CRVS) in all countries in the Asia Pacific Region by 2024. The meeting declared 2015-2024 as the Asia Pacific CRVS Decade. India attended this meeting and agreed to the commitments to focus efforts to improving CRVS systems to get everyone in picture. The regional action framework adopted at this meeting is aims at accelerating efforts to realize a shared vision and achieve the following goals:

Goal 1    :  Universal civil registration of births, deaths and other vital events

Goal 2     :  All individuals are provided with legal documentation of civil registration of births, deaths and other vital events, as necessary to claim identify, civil status and ensuring rights.

Goal 3     :  Accurate complete and timey vital statistics (including on causes of death) are produced based on registration records and are disseminated.

India has set itself an ambitious vision of achieving registration of all births and deaths by 2020, known as “Vision 2020”. Achieving the Vision needed a clearly defined strategy and action plan. The primary objective of the assignment was to prepare a strategic plan for achieving the objectives that are set out in “Vision 2020”. A second objective is to examine the existing Registration of Birth and Death (RBD) Act 1969 to suggest amendments to the Act to address the changing context in which civil registration is functioning and to make recommendations for necessary changes in Rules under the Act.

IIHMR constituted a team consisting of in-house faculty members and research officers and three expert consultants with extensive international and country experience on civil registration systems. A start up meeting was held, chaired by the RGI, where officers from ORGI, UNICEF and the consultants finalized the modalities for undertaking this task. It was decided to start the process through meetings with all concerned partners and actors and catching up with recent developments in all the related sectors. Discussions were held with senior officials in Niti Ayog, Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), the Ministries of Women and Child development, Panchayats, Health and Family Welfare, the National Health Mission, the Department of Information Technology, and Statistics and Programme Implementation and UN agencies connected with the work and NGOs in December 2015, as the first step in the preparation of this strategic Plan.

The next step was a four-day Orientation cum Stakeholder Consultation workshop on Strengthening of Civil Registration and Vital Statistics System in the context of Vision 2020, organized at IIHMR Jaipur. In consultation with ORGI it was decided to select six states for the in-depth study, namely, Assam, Bihar, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh. This consultation was attended by Chief and/ or Deputy Chief Registrars, and staff from Census operations dealing with CRVS from each of the six States and officers from ORGI and had the following objectives:

• To apprise the participants about the CRVS Vision 2020: national commitments and opportunities for strengthening CRVS, and evolving national and international scenario;
• To assess barriers and bottlenecks for realizing Vision 2020; finalizing the framework and approach for assessment of status of CRVS; and
• To finalize the draft assessment tools and modalities for the proposed field visits and role of the State participants and leadership in the States
• The tools developed for pre-testing during the workshop focused on:
• Why levels of registration of births and deaths are low;
• Access and cost issues;
• The way processes of registration are structured;
• The manner of recording cause of death and related issues;
• Other related matters

Following the orientation workshop and finalization of tools, assessment missions were undertaken to all the selected States in the months of February and March 2016 with a faculty member of IIHMR, one of the consultants and the officials of the Chief Registrar’s office and Directorate of census Operations visiting each State. Following this, a broad causality analysis was undertaken to explore the key underlying causes for the situation.

A broad strategic map was developed to address issues related to governance and demand generation. The overall objective of the strategy was attaining the Goals of Vision 2020. These goals will be achieved through two main pillars. One is improved governance, supported through useful vital statistics and improved civil registration data. The other is realization of human and civil rights and strengthening of national security through creation of a well-functioning civil registration system. The strategy focuses on five key themes that would result in reaching the objectives. With the diversity in the situation with regard to CRVS in the country, and considering the shared responsibility between the Central and State governments, it is suggested that the implementation of this strategy should be based on a facilitated process at the State level. The ORGI is expected to take the leadership in this process through bringing on board the State governments, working through the Inter-Departmental Coordination Committees. Suitable institutional partnerships to support the State level processes will be useful in providing the necessary technical support for this process. It is suggested that a major focus should be in the lagging States, particularly Assam, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. A “mission mode” approach is suggested so that these States are given the necessary support in moving forward the suggested changes so that remarkable results are realized by 2020.